


Five Times Ryan Was Less Than Perfect

by Banach_Tarski



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Angst, Fake AH Crew, Fluff, Humor, Injury, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-09-07 15:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8805808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Banach_Tarski/pseuds/Banach_Tarski
Summary: The Vagabond is a deadly killing machine, notorious across all of Los Santos. Every action he makes is cold and calculated, and he never makes mistakes. Just hearing his name is enough to make people break out in a cold sweat.But Ryan Haywood, the man beneath the mask, is just a human. Just as clumsy, forgetful, and occasionally moronic as anyone else. But he'd kill you if you told anyone.





	1. The First Time

Calafia Bridge at dawn is a sight to behold- you can watch the sun rise over the Alamo Sea, and the view west down the creek to the ocean is nice too. What Ryan hated was the fact he had to be here at _dawn_ instead of in his bed. The air had a sharp chill to it, and Ryan zipped up his jacket and put his hands in his pockets. Dawn was the coldest time of day.

At least the mask helped keep his face warm.

“I think I see them.” Jeremy called out. He pointed down the road, and in the distance Ryan could make out dust billowing up from a black dot steadily approaching.

“Yep, that’s them.” Ryan replied. “Gav? You ready?”

“Almost!” Gavin shouted from the back of the van. The van was a bit of a downgrade to the vehicles they were used to, but it wouldn’t stick out so much when they drove back through Sandy Shores. Secrecy was important, which was why they had to meet at dawn too.

Ryan leaned against one of the metal beams supporting the bridge.

“Are you going to come out, then?”

“In a minute!”

“They’re gonna be here in a minute!”

Gavin stepped out of the back of the van, a grin on his face. In his hand he held a duffel bag filled with documents and money. He dusted himself off a bit, checked the bag was closed, and all but skipped over to Ryan.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just it’s all a bit exciting, isn’t it? Our here in the middle of nowhere, making deals and looking all intimidating and such.”

“Jeremy and I are looking intimidating. You just have to make sure the deal goes smoothly.”

Although, Jeremy looking intimidating was a bit of a stretch. The purple and orange combined with the cowboy hat was an… interesting style choice.

But then again, Ryan himself went around everywhere in a skull mask, so he wasn’t one to talk about style.

“I know, I know.” Gavin replied. “I’m just… excited.”

Ryan and Jeremy were no strangers to these sorts of deals, but Gavin was much more at home behind a computer screen than out here in the thick of it. Not that he wasn’t capable of handling himself in case things got hairy, he was more than capable of looking after himself. When he wanted to, Gavin could smooth talk the gun out of a policeman’s hand. He just didn’t like talking to strangers.

Geoff and Jack had grown far too busy to personally attend each transaction, so they were trying to make Gavin more comfortable with doing them. Ryan and Jeremy were just here to provide support.

Michael was laid up in bed after a particularly lucky bullet tore through his leg during a confrontation with another crew. He was part of the reason why they were here in the first place.

The black dot grew into a car, and soon it pulled up in front of them. Three men climbed out, but Ryan saw another waiting inside. Probably just trying to keep the numbers even.

Gavin walked over to them, a fake smile planted on his face. He shook the front guy’s hand, and then put some distance between them. The three men appeared unarmed, but then again so did the three of them. Ryan did have a pistol tucked away on his person, as well as a few knives, but he wasn’t expecting any trouble. He’d done deals with these people before.

“You’re not Ramsey.” The lead guy said.

“And you’re Turner.” Gavin replied. “Ramsey is rather busy these days, I’m afraid. We can still make a deal.”

Turner took a few steps closer to Gavin, some swagger in his step. Ryan pushed himself off the bridge support.

“If Ramsey can’t _deign_ to come see me himself, then maybe I should take my business elsewhere. There are other crews, with more money.”

The words sounded uninterested, but Turner’s eyes were locked on the duffel bag in Gavin’s hand. Gavin had seen his eyes as well. He gave the bag a pat.

“No one else has this dirt on the Senator. I can give you a personal guarantee on that.”

Gavin was telling the truth. He’d stolen that information himself.

Turner pretended to think about it for a while. Eventually he clicked his fingers and the fourth man brought something out of the car and held it up. It looked like a square of heavy fabric.

“The armour prototypes. Reinforced with carbon nanotubes, lined with enhanced Kevlar, light as a feather. Stolen straight from the testing lab.” Turner explained. “This could stop a .30 calibre armour piercing round dead in its tracks, and Ramsey could still wear it under one of his suits.”

Gavin nodded appreciatively. “May I?” he asked, gesturing.

The fourth guy handed the square over. Gavin fingered the fabric in the same way a shopper would a shirt or a piece of fruit. He nodded and passed the square back.

“It’ll do. We’ll take twelve.”

Turner raised an eyebrow.

“Twelve what? Twelve squares? Twelve boxes?”

Gavin floundered for a moment.

“T-twelve of what we agreed on.” Gavin replied.

That was almost a smooth recovery, Gavin.

Turner nodded and gestured to his men. They unloaded three boxes onto the side of the road. Jeremy and Ryan stepped towards them.

“Not yet.” Turner said.

They stopped.

“The price has gone up.”

It was Gavin’s turn to raise an eyebrow.

“I’ve got the money and the papers right here, ready to go. Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”

“The prototypes just got more valuable.” Turner sneered. “One seventy five.”

“We agreed on one twenty. And the papers.”

“One seventy five, or you walk away with _less_ than nothing.”

Ryan didn’t like the sound of that. Not at all.

He took his hands out of his pockets, put them behind his back, and squared his shoulders. He could feel the shape of the pistol grip through his jacket. He saw Jeremy mimic his actions out of the corner of his eye.

Gavin didn’t turn around to look at them, but he must have picked up on the change in atmosphere. Immediately his voice took on a darker tone, and he tilted his head to the side.

“You see, Turner, my boys aren’t nearly as good at negotiating as I am. Their style of negotiation involves less… talking.”

Ryan stared at Turner, unblinking. Turner’s eyes flicked to him and away again, but then settled once more on Ryan once he registered the intensity of Ryan’s stare. There was no fear in this stare, no uncertainty. There was only stone cold calculation.

The men behind Turner shifted uneasily. Something about Ryan’s hands hidden behind his back put them off. Most people when threatened would react defensively, but Ryan looked more at ease now than when the negotiations began.

They were right to be worried.

Next to him, Jeremy smiled. It wasn’t a smile that offered reassurance, or set the recipient at ease. It was a smile that showed not even the slightest concern for danger. Absolute certainty. A sort of warm emptiness that contrasted perfectly with Ryan’s ice.

Gavin raised his voice.

“So you can either negotiate with me, or with them. Which is it going to be?”

One of Turner’s men visibly quivered in his shoes.

Everyone had heard of the Vagabond. Less had heard of Dooley, but Ryan was sure that was working to his advantage. The Vagabond was becoming an almost familiar threat in Los Santos. Jeremy was a wildcard.

Turner glanced behind him and took in the state of his men. He looked back at Gavin and gnashed his teeth together.

“…Fine. One twenty.”

“Not good enough anymore. Because I’m such a brilliant negotiator, you’ll take one hundred thousand and not a cent more.”

Turner’s eyes flicked to Ryan’s.

“…Fine! Take the boxes!”

Ryan walked back over to the crates. He opened one, and inside sat four rolls of the prototype armour material. He nodded at Gavin.

Gavin put the duffel bag down and opened it, withdrawing twenty thousand dollars from it. He passed the money to Jeremy, and gave the duffel to Turner.

“Absolute pleasure doing business with you, Turner.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“On a bed of high tech body armour. Cheers!”

Turner and his men climbed back in the car and drove away, sending dust billowing up into the air.

Once they were out of sight, Gavin sagged.

“Oh thank Christ!”

Jeremy stepped over to him and clapped him on the back.

“You did great! You didn’t look worried at all!”

“I thought I was gonna vom.”

“Your nerves didn’t show.” Ryan said. “And, you saved twenty grand. Ten out of ten.”

Gavin straightened up a little.

“I just want to go home and back to bed.”

Ryan looked back down the road and frowned.

“I really didn’t think they’d be any trouble. I’ve met with Turner half a dozen times before, and he’d never been hostile before. I should have been more prepared.”

“Hey, it was fine.” Gavin cracked a smile, a genuine one. “We got it sorted didn’t we?”

“True. Geoff’s going to be so pleased, I bet you’re going to do all the deals from now on.”

Gavin sighed. “Great. Perfect.”

Jeremy kicked at the loose stones on the road next to the bridge.

“Why do you think Turner turned into such a prick?” Jeremy asked. “It’s not like him.”

Ryan lifted his mask up a bit to scratch his face.

“He mentioned selling to other crews. He might be trying to make a bit of a name for himself, expand his territory.”

“Nah.” Jeremy replied. “He doesn’t have the spine. He all but crumpled when we turned on the charm and Gavin put on his spooky voice.”

“You think he’s under the thumb of another crew? One that’s using him to make things more difficult for us?”

“Could be. I’ll get some people to start asking questions.”

They stared at the three boxes on the side of the road. They looked heavy.

“Come on then,” Ryan said, “Boxes in the van. I want to take a nap.”

They each picked one up, Jeremy and Gavin making mock groaning noises as they did.

It wasn’t too heavy. Ryan walked slowly towards the van.

Jeremy approached him, a broad grin on his face.

“Thanks Ryan!” Jeremy said, and put his box on top of Ryan’s. “You’re a real friend.”

Ryan staggered under the weight of two boxes.

“Fuck you, Dooley.”

Jeremy laughed.

“Yeah, thanks Ryan!” Gavin said, and walked over to him as well, box raised.

Any sensible person would have put the two boxes down and left one there. Ryan stopped walking and moved to do so-

“There’s no way he can carry all three!” Jeremy said.

Well.

Now he _had_ to.

Ryan dutifully lowered the boxes, low enough that it was easy for Gavin to place his on top. Very slowly, Ryan stood up straight.

“I got this.”

He took one step forwards.

This proved to be a mistake, as the stack of boxes tilted forwards dangerously.

Ryan hurried to correct the motion, but now the boxes were falling to the left.

Ryan chased after them.

His foot slipped on a loose stone by the side of the road.

Ryan fell.

“Oh fu- oof!”

Ryan tumbled down the steep incline next to the bridge. The boxes fell with him, colliding painfully with various parts of his body. A particularly nasty corner hit the side of his face.

He slid over a lip and crashed into the creek below.

At dawn, the water is _icy_.

Ryan ripped the mask off his head and surfaced, gasping for air. The water was only a foot or so deep, so it wasn’t too difficult climb to his feet and scramble out of the water. Which he did. Very quickly.

Fantastic. Just how he wanted his day to start.

He looked up towards the bridge.

“Stop laughing!”

Gavin and Jeremy were howling, complete with tears and knee slapping.

“Oh my God,” Gavin managed to say, “I wish I had my phone out!”

“The box!” Jeremy yelled. “Grab the box!”

One of the boxes had fallen in the water after him. Ryan sighed, debating whether the thirty grand box was worth going back out for. He waded back into the creek and grabbed it. Then he waded right back out.

“Nice morning swim, eh?” Jeremy shouted. “Still want that nap?”

“Just come down here and pick up a box, would you?”

“Nope, you come up first. If I go down there you’ll push me in.”

Ryan wrung out first his shirt, and then his ponytail. Everything was soaked, and his clothes had also picked up quite a bit of debris from the fall. Ryan hauled the dripping box up and out of the ditch and dropped it on the road. He pulled a face. He was covered in twigs and leaves, and he could feel where bruises would start to form.

“Hold still, hold still.” Gavin said, pulling out his phone. “I’m going to send this to Geoff.”

“If you do, I will murder you. To _death_.”

“Oh, shut up. Look, all your face paint’s running off! You look like an emo kid!”

Ryan had opted for just some black paint around his eyes for today, and he could imagine how his faced looked with it all running down his cheeks and into his beard.

“That’s it.” Ryan took a few steps towards Gavin. “You’re gonna die now.”

“No! Wait”-

Gavin tried to run back to the van but Ryan shot a hand out and grabbed his collar, and pulled him into a bear hug.

“No, don’t! I’m gonna get all gammy!”

“Too late.”

Jeremy laughed in the background, loud guffaws that were strangely infectious and Ryan soon found himself joining in.

“I’m going to have a _massive_ bruise on my face.”

He let Gavin go and almost immediately started shivering. It was what, quarter past five in the morning? Far too early for this sort of nonsense.

“Hey Ryan!” Jeremy called out.

Ryan turned his face towards Jeremy.

Jeremy snapped a picture on his phone.

Ryan sighed.

“Do you want me to hug you too? Because this is how you get hugged.”

“Okay, okay, I’m done. Gav and I will get the other two boxes.” Jeremy shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to Ryan. “Here- warm up a little.”

Ryan took the jacket and nodded his thanks. Jeremy and Gavin headed down the slope to retrieve the boxes, and by the time they returned, Ryan had already taken off his wet shirt and jacket and replaced it with Jeremy’s purple one. They loaded the boxes into the van.

The wet pants, bare chest, and purple blazer were not a good look. Jeremy was broad, but the blazer’s arms were far too short on Ryan. He caught Gavin and Jeremy snickering behind their hands.

“Can we go now, please?” Ryan asked.

“I’ll drive.” Jeremy said.

“Can you turn the heat on?”

“Of course, man. Get in. Do you want to stop off at breakfast place and get something warm?”

“…Yeah.”

“Alright, we’ll do that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Michael looked up from the TV when they walked in.  
> “God, Ryan,” Michael said, “What happened to your face? Problems with Turner?”  
> Gavin laughed.  
> “Nope. Ryan lost a fight with a hill.”  
> “And then a creek.” Jeremy added. “His fault, too. He started it.”  
> “I did not!” Ryan paused. “Oh no.”  
> “What?”  
> “I think I left my pistol in the creek.”  
> Gavin and Jeremy cracked up again.


	2. The Second Time

Ryan’s footsteps echoed loudly on the shiny art gallery floor. Every art gallery had them, which Ryan thought was pretty strange, because wouldn’t the designer want to minimise that sort of noise? What was so special about shiny loud floors that made them a must-have in a gallery? Was this part of an art gallery aesthetic?

It was dark- almost midnight. Ambient light from the external windows, and the full moon, dimly lit the gallery and cast a long shadow behind Ryan, long enough to reach the far wall. Ryan completed a circuit of the room, and then repeated the process in the next. There was meant to be a security guard around here somewhere, but none of them had exactly been sneaking around and they haven’t shown their face. Intelligence must have been wrong. It happened sometimes.

Still, Ryan kept his finger close to the trigger of his silenced pistol. It couldn’t hurt to be careful.

He walked into a different part of the gallery. More light from outside filtered in from traffic lights and a few street lamps, light enough for Ryan to make out some of the gallery exhibits displayed on the walls. Most of them were pretty abstract, which Ryan liked because you could look at them however you wanted and your interpretation can be right. Plus, you can rotate the painting and get a different image. It was like four paintings for the price of one.

Maybe he could convince Geoff to let him buy some for the apartment. It was pretty new and still fairly empty, so they actually had some spare space to decorate. Not like the last apartment, with maps and weapons and no other word for it, _clutter_ adorning the walls.

And they were in an art gallery right now- there was a piece here with black and blue highlights that Ryan found quite fetching. It wouldn’t take two minutes to cut it out of its frame-

“Hello? Vagabond?” Jack’s voice asked over the comms. “You there?”

“Yep, sorry. Got distracted while browsing.”

“Gavin’s figured out the electronic lock, but we’ve hit a bit of a snag.”

“What?”

“The sculpture is quite a bit bigger than we were expecting.”

“How big are we talking?”

“It’s like the size of a baby elephant. None of us can lift the damn thing.”

Great. How much did they pay for the information for tonight? Too damn much, that’s for sure.

“Well, someone put it in there,” Ryan mused, “There’s probably a dolly around here somewhere. You know, that two-wheeled thing that people use to cart boxes around.”

“That’s not the only problem.” Jack continued.

“Oh dear.”

“It’s probably easier if you just come in here and take a look at it.”

And that’s not ominous at _all_.

Ryan headed into the ‘Staff Only’ area and walked to the storage room near the back. Inside, boxes of varying lengths lined the walls and floor and a stack of cleaning supplies sat in the corner. The boxes were probably holding new pieces waiting to be put out on rotation, but Ryan wasn’t an expert in how galleries ran their business. Especially this one- the Oeuvre Gallery, which had only been around for a few years and Ryan still couldn’t properly pronounce the name of. It was ‘hip’ and ‘trendy’ and not like other galleries they’d stolen from before.

On the other side of the room was a large metal box, more like a cage, with the door currently open. Gavin, Jeremy, and Michael stood around it, thinking. Ryan walked past them to try and take a look inside.

“Maybe we should call Geoff.” Michael said.

“No, come on.” Jeremy replied. “We’re five young, capable, intelligent men. We can figure this out.”

Inside the cage’s open door, the sculpture sat, clearly stuck in the door frame.

“Ah,” Ryan said. “I see.”

The sculpture was enormous. Easily the size of a family dinner table, with a thick, heavy base, it depicted a winged woman with the globe in her hands. It was made of some sort of stone, what type exactly Ryan didn’t know, but he did recognise the globe was actually a large lump of gold. Good Lord, there had to be a hundred pounds of gold in it. Maybe even two hundred.

Someone had tried to tip the sculpture over, but the woman’s wings had gotten stuck in the door. Her arms and the globe hung outside the frame.

“We can see how it got stuck, so we can do the reverse,” Gavin explained, “But to get it unstuck we’d need to lift it up a bit.”

“Can we cut the cage open?” Jeremy asked.

Michael scoffed.

“It’s got reinforced steel plating, you’re welcome to try.”

Gavin laughed. “You could try kicking it open, Jeremy.”

Ryan appraised the sculpture.

“So this thing is worth about four million, right?” He turned away and surveyed the room.

“Yeah,” Michael said. “It was made about two hundred and fifty years ago, in Germany. Well, Prussia, because there wasn’t a Germany yet- what are you doing?”

Ryan had picked up a crowbar. He walked back towards the sculpture.

“Look, that gold in there has got to be worth at least two million. If it’s stuck, it’s better than walking away with nothing.”

“Aww, don’t do it Vagabond!” Jeremy said.

“Do it! Do it!” Gavin countered.

Jack walked back in the room, pushing a red dolly in front of him. When he saw Ryan’s crowbar, he raised an eyebrow.

“Vagabond, please don’t ruin the four million dollar statue.”

Ryan looked at Jack, then back to his crowbar. Sighing, he dropped it on the ground.

“But the gold”-

“You’re not destroying two million dollars worth of statue to get it. The gallery’s deserted. We’ve got hours and hours still to figure this out.”

Michael clicked his fingers, an idea coming to him.

“Explosives.”

“No.”

“Not even little ones?”

“ _No-_ actually,” Jack said, thinking about it, “Maybe. But we’d have to be quick about it. Someone will call the police when they hear the explosions.”

Explosives. For some reason Ryan wasn’t surprised that Michael had elected to bring some on a simple, snatch-and-grab robbery. And thinking about it, Michael might be on to something.

Two of the cage walls were secured to the main walls by heavy bolts. Their other sides connected at a corner and it was probably the weakest point of the structure. Welds always were. It doesn’t matter how thick your steel plating is because the joins will always ruin it for you.

Michael pointed at the corner of the two walls.

“That’ll be the weakest point there. I can rig up some charges here, here, and here,” he gestured, “and we might be able to get that wall with the door frame to slip forwards. With a bit of luck the statue will fall back on its base and not smash into the ground.”

Jack and Jeremy nodded, liking the plan.

“I’ll hold it steady.” Jeremy said. “Then we can just tilt it onto the dolly.”

“I’ll bring the car around then.” Gavin said, and turned to go but Ryan held onto his arm.

“This isn’t gonna fit in the car. You need to steal a van.”

“And just bring it to the alley with the car,” Jack added. “Too many cameras near the loading bay. We can bring the sculpture to you on the dolly.”

Gavin nodded, and walked through to the public area of the gallery to where they’d come in.

They had a little while before Gavin would be ready. Michael spent a few minutes shaping his charges and making sure the detonators were placed correctly. Satisfied, he stuck them to key positions along the join.

Ryan knew his way around most kinds of explosives, and he’d thrown more sticky bombs than he could count, but he didn’t have the knack for them like Michael did. The kid always knew exactly how to set everything up- not only for the charges to do their job, but to maximise the damage or to start a chain reaction.

 A couple of times Ryan had asked him about it, how he got into explosives and who taught him, but each time he’d just smiled and said he was born an agent of chaos.

Just as Ryan was beginning to get a little concerned, Gavin’s voice came across loud and clear over the comms.

“Got one. Funnily enough, there’s not too many vans around at midnight to commandeer.”

“Alright, we’ll meet you soon.” Jack replied.

Jeremy stood in front of the statue and braced his hands against the globe. Ryan and Jack took a few steps back.

Michael set off the charges.

The explosions were small, but what they lacked in size they more than made up for in volume. Especially in a space like this- the sound echoed back at them with almost the same level of concussive force. Thankfully, his mask offered an amount of shielding from the noise, and he’d seen Michael and Jack put their hands over their ears before the charges went off. Jeremy probably hadn’t the chance to do so if he was supporting the sculpture. Ryan winced in sympathy.

Once the smoke had cleared, it was easy to see the explosions had done their job. The wall had fallen forwards enough for the sculpture to separate itself from the doorframe.

An alarm sounded. Time to move quickly.

Jeremy, strong as he was, trembled under the weight of not even the full statue, and Ryan watched as it slowly tilted further over. Michael rushed over and joined Jeremy, and together they stopped it from falling. Jack quickly stepped over the fallen wall, dolly in hand, and prepared to transport the sculpture.

Jeremy and Michael, with not a few grunts, managed to heave the sculpture back onto its base. Jack slipped the foot of the dolly under it and, with Michael and Jeremy supporting either side, lifted it up again, ready to transport.

Only one problem- the fallen wall was in the way. There was no way that dolly was able to go up the step created by the top of the doorframe.

“Vagabond,” Jack said, “If you wouldn’t mind?”

Ryan gripped the top of the wall. It was about ten feet long, seven high, and definitely covered in steel plating judging by the weight. Still, Ryan was able to raise the wall high enough for the other three and the sculpture to slip under the frame, and head towards the exit.

Ryan took a second to readjust his grip on the wall and finish hauling it the rest of the way up, letting it rest against the other. There, much neater. He jogged out of the store room and followed the others out of the gallery.

He should have taken a few minutes while Michael was setting the charges to grab that blue and black painting that caught his attention. Maybe if he was quick, he could go back and-

He stepped out onto the road and was immediately hit by a car.

Pain flared in his side and shoulder. He spun, luckily it was a glancing blow, and the car didn’t even stop before it sped off. Typical.

Ryan hit the ground painfully on his shoulder. Winded, he rolled onto his back and gasped at the streetlights.

“Vagabond?” Jacked said through the comms. “Where are you?”

Michael and Jeremy’s voiced came through as well.

“We’re at the van. Hurry up!”

“You okay Ryan?”

All Ryan could say in response was half a cough and a grunt.

He looked back at the gallery and oh, lo and behold, here came the security guard. He looked about eighty, and in one hand he had a Taser and in the other a cigarette.

So the guard had been on his smoke break and come back to find his gallery burgled. Ryan wondered if, in his age, he’d even heard the alarm sound.

Ryan’s pistol had fallen a few feet away by the gutter. He put on his most menacing glare and rose to his knees.

Ryan growled at the guard, something dark and extremely menacing in the action. The security guard stopped dead in his tracks.

He didn’t want to hurt the old security guard. He’d intimidated more powerful men into submission in worse situations, so an ancient security guard wasn’t going to give him any trouble.

Everyone had heard of the Vaga-

The security guard fired the Taser, hitting Ryan on the chest with both probes.

Agonising pain. Ryan fell back onto the road, unable to control any of his muscles. His legs spasmed. The pain came in brutally fast waves, making his whole body feel like it was burning. He couldn’t even open his mouth to cry out.

After the longest seven seconds of his life, the pain stopped.  Almost immediately he was consumed with a blind rage. He pulled the probes out of his chest and jumped to his feet, all but snarling in anger.

How _dare_ this old man-

The security guard shot him again.

Ryan fell face first into the concrete, only his mask preventing him from breaking his nose. The same absolutely writhing pain filled his body, and he twitched on the ground for a good ten seconds before it stopped.

Ryan stayed on the ground, panting.

Being hit with a Taser was Not Fun. Being hit with a Taser a second time in thirty seconds was an experience he wasn’t willing to repeat, not ever, so he stayed on the ground.

“Now listen here, sonny.” The security guard said, “Just sit tight, the police are on their way”-

Jeremy came sprinting out of the gloom, and snatched the Taser from the security guard. The guard raised his hands in a placating manner. Jeremy threw the Taser up onto the roof of the art gallery.

“Just go sit over there.” Jeremy told the guard, furious and protective.

Jeremy watched the guard while Jack ran up to Ryan and helped him sit up.

“You okay?”

Ryan groaned, but nodded.

“Nothing broken. Tased. Twice. And hit by a car.”

Jack shook his head and tutted. The sound of sirens became audible in the distance.

“You should know by now to look both ways before crossing the road. Come on.”

Ryan sighed, but allowed Jack to help him to his feet. With one arm around his waist, together they limped across the road and to the alley the van was hidden in. Jeremy opened the back door for them, and helped rearrange some of the stuff in the back so he could sit a bit more comfortably.

Ryan collapsed against the sculpture and winced, a hand going to his side. His ribs hurt. His chest ached, and nose throbbed.

Most of all, his pride stung.

“What happened back there?” Michael asked.

Ryan let his head fall back and rest against the giant golden globe.

“Drive, Gavin.”

“Driving!” Gavin replied. He pulled out of the alley and began the drive back to the apartment.

It was quiet in the van for about ten seconds before Jack started to laugh. Big, hearty laughs that made Ryan glare at him.

“Oh my God,” Jack said, “Ryan found the security guard. Some crotchety old guy. Tases him twice. Oh my God, it was hilarious!” Jack paused to get his laughter under control before continuing. “The great Vagabond bested by an eighty year old!”

Jeremy and Gavin started to snicker, exchanging a look.

“He had an advantage!” Ryan argued. “I got hit by a car first!”

“Jeez Ryan,” Michael exclaimed, “You gotta look both ways.”

“That’s what I said!” Jack shouted, and laughed again.

“I hate all of you.” Ryan said. “And Jeremy, you have to remember to call me Vagabond over the comms when we’re working. It’s professional.”

“Is getting hit by a car professional?” Jeremy replied.

“…Fuck you.”

They all laughed at him. Jack wiped a tear from his eye.

“But seriously Ryan,” Gavin said in a more serious tone, “Are you okay?”

“I will be. Hit the road pretty hard. Ribs hurt, but it’s not major.”

“I’ll take a look at you once we get back to the apartment.” Jack assured him. “Nothing I can do for your dignity though.”

Ryan took off his mask and sent Jack a glare that could have killed a lesser man.

Jack smiled back sweetly at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Ow.”  
> “Hold still. I think we’re meant to just pull the probes out.”  
> “You think?!”  
> “I’m not a real doctor, Ryan!”  
> Ryan sat at one of the kitchen chairs, a bandage around his ribs and Jack hovering over his chest. Jack picked up bottle of pills and passed them to Ryan.  
> “Open these for me, would you.”  
> While Ryan was occupied, Jack ripped the probes out of his chest.  
> “Ow!”  
> “Hey, it worked, didn’t it? Have some tissues.”  
> Ryan took them and dabbed at the red spots blooming on his chest.  
> “I should probably thank you. For today.”  
> “Nothing you haven’t done for me a hundred times over.”  
> “Still… thanks.”  
> Jack smiled fondly at him. “Anytime, anywhere.”  
> Ryan smiled back, but his expression changed suddenly and the smile faded away.  
> “What is it?” Jack asked.  
> “I left my _damn_ pistol behind. _Again_.”


	3. The Third Time

The Murrieta Oil Field had been steadily chugging away for decades, lining the greedy pockets of some CEO and his company. Even after dozens of years, the pump jacks still found enough oil to keep the refinery in business, and enough money to bribe any inspectors who would report on the awful and unsafe working conditions. There were also several crews in the area eager to take some of the profit.

That wasn’t why Ryan was there though- the oil industry wasn’t something Geoff was interested in. But in the scrapyard, a little further south of the main compound, a deal was going down tonight that the Fakes were very interested in. One of the biggest crews in the area, the Harveys, was about to receive a sizeable package in exchange for an entire pallet of cocaine.

Jeremy’s network of whispers had told him Turner was doing deals with the Harveys, and the trail of information had led them to the deal tonight. Why the crew was called the Harveys Ryan wasn’t sure, because the leader of the pack was named Sam.

Ryan shrugged internally. Each to their own.

A transaction of this scale piqued Geoff’s interest as soon as he heard about it. The Harveys were slowly growing into a threat in East Los Santos. Jeremy’s sources have told him they might start skirmishes on the edges of Geoff’s territory in the coming weeks, so it was becoming increasingly important to keep an eye on them.

Which was why Ryan was skulking around on a hill near the transaction site just after sundown. The sky was bright enough still to see the outlines of trees and such, but not enough to make out much detail on the ground. It was a big job- everyone was lurking on the fringes of the scrapyard, hoping an opportunity would pop up and they could take the package. They would take whatever advantage they could get in the coming conflict.

If that wasn’t possible, well, it would be enough to ruin the deal or at least Sam’s day. That would give a nice reminder to the Harveys to not get too big for their shoes.

A guard, or a thug, Ryan presumed, positioned themselves in-between him and the transaction site. Ryan crouched low behind a bush and created a bit of distance between them. Best not to start trouble yet, not while the Harveys were on high alert. It was a much safer alternative to wait until the deal had been finished before making a move- the crew would feel safe and let their guard down once Turner and his men left.

About thirty feet to his left, Jack accidentally kicked a pile of spare parts on the ground.

Ryan had to stop himself from screaming internally.

One of the guards made their way over to where Jack was hiding. The other guard wandered away, either unknowing or uncaring of the noise, which made things easier but not by much. One sound from the approaching guard could send everyone running and ruin everything.

Ryan pulled a knife from his jacket, and stood up straight, his head popping up from behind the bush. If he was fast enough, he could solve this without causing a commotion. The knife was jet-black, perfectly weighted at the hilt, and Ryan held it out in front of him, watching carefully. The approaching guard’s movements were steady and regular, and there was only the barest hint of a breeze in the air. It wasn’t a difficult shot.

Ryan pulled the knife back to gather momentum and launched it forwards. The balanced blade cut the air like a knife, coincidentally, and struck true in the back of the guard’s neck. The guard slumped forwards and Jack caught him before he hit the ground.

Jack lowered the body down behind the pile of spare parts. He slid the knife out from the guard’s spine, but apart from a few twitches the body didn’t react. Definitely dead. Jack gave Ryan a thumbs up, which Ryan returned. There was a decrepit-looking car just to his side, so Jack stuffed the body in the back seat.

One problem solved. Hopefully the other guard wouldn’t wander back over. They can’t be the most well-trained group of thugs, otherwise the second guard would never have let the first wander off by himself. And an even better group wouldn’t have left the scrapyard so woefully under guarded in the first place. Seriously, there were only what, a dozen people wandering around? And a few of them looked like _teenagers._ Why was Sam hiring so many young people? Better hearing and eyesight? Cheaper?

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to grab Jack and move somewhere else on the off chance he came back. They might even be able to find somewhere closer.

Ryan slipped out from behind the bush and carefully made his way over to Jack. Together they hugged the slope next to the main scrapyard building and climbed over some rocks. Jack passed his knife back and Ryan nodded his thanks.

Geoff whispered over the comms.

“Jack, you might want to head north. There’s a rocky outcrop you can hide behind that backs onto one of the roads. Vagabond, I think there’s a ditch next to the road just west of you.”

“Why do I get the ditch?”

“I bet you’ll be surprised and it’s actually a really nice ditch.”

Ryan and Jack parted ways. Ryan waited in the shadows for another group of guards to walk past and then hurried to the ditch.

It was not a nice ditch. A small stream of water ran along the bottom into a pipe and the slope was strewn with sticks and pebbles. Ryan laid down on the slop next to the pipe and felt cold water ooze into his socks, and stones poke into his hip.

This wasn’t the worst ditch he’d ever lain in, but it was up there.

At least it was close enough to the transaction point that he would hear whatever was said. Maybe Turner or Sam would incriminate someone else who was thinking of switching sides, or spill the beans on what was actually being traded.

Roughly fifteen minutes or so later, an armoured car and a truck came around the corner and drove into the scrapyard. Ryan turned his head away as he was pelted with dust and small stones. Just the icing on the cake, really. Ryan lifted his mask up briefly to try and wipe some of the dust out of his eyes.

“Sam’s here.” Michael said over the comms, helpfully.

“Everyone ready?” Geoff replied. Five voices of confirmation answered him. “Okay. Wait for my signal and then we’ll go. Vagabond, you close enough to hear what’s going on?”

“Yep.”

“Good.”

Sam and three more men came out of the armoured car. If anyone got out of the truck, Ryan didn’t hear them or see their feet. He shifted a little bit on the uncomfortable gravel.

The new men looked a little more formidable than the rest of the hired thugs. One wore a studded leather jacket and held an impressively long machete. Another looked like he was about eight feet tall and carried a minigun. The last man had bright pink hair and intricate tattoos down his am.

On closer inspection, the last man turned out to be an incredibly muscular woman. Ryan couldn’t make out a weapon in her hands, but a tell-tale metallic glint over her fingers made him think she had knuckle dusters.

When the fight started, these three would have to go first. Michael could probably take out one with his snipe rifle, probably the tallest one with the minigun, and Gavin was armed to the teeth with smoke grenades and sticky bombs. That was likely more than enough to separate and confuse them while the rest of them came in guns blazing.

The three new thugs unloaded the cocaine from the back of the truck a few bricks at a time. Eventually they had a sizeable pile by the side of truck.

They’d crunched the numbers back at the apartment, and an entire pallet was worth around twelve million and weighed a thousand pounds. It was certainly the most cocaine Ryan had ever seen, but he’d expected it to look a little bigger on the pallet. Often things like this were underwhelming in real life.

None of the thugs said a word as they unloaded the drugs. Sam looked bored and fiddled on his phone.

Just as they finished, another truck came up the road. This had to be Turner with the package. Ryan turned his head away in time to avoid the dirt from the truck’s passage. The truck rolled to a stop near the edge of the scrapyard, about twenty feet from where Ryan was watching. A few seconds late Turner got out of the truck and approached the Harveys.

“Sam! Sam, good to see you.” Turner said with a smile, and shook Sam’s hand.

Sam said nothing.

“Is that all the cocaine?” Turner continued, “Because I thought there’d be a bit more of it, you know what I mean?”

“It’s all there.” Sam replied. “You have your end of the bargain?”

Turner slapped the side of the truck and someone from inside the truck opened the back doors. Two of his men climbed off the back and started unloading something.

“Of course.” Turner said. “With all the latest upgrades, and a few extra ones that just passed testing in the lab. It was _not_ easy smuggling this here.” He pulled a hand held device out from a pocket. “Do you mind?” he asked, gesturing towards the cocaine.

“No, do your tests.” Sam responded.

Turner poked one of the cocaine bricks with the device and looked at the readings, nodding appreciatively.

“Yep. That’s within the quality allowance. Can I ask how you managed to scrounge up so much in such a short time?”

“Can I ask who your contacts are in the testing facility?”

“Hey, hey.” Turner raised his hands in the air in a placating manner. “Just making conversation.”

Seemed Turner was back to his more affable self. And apparently still trading stolen/barely tested equipment. This time, straight to the enemy.

Yeah, he was _so_ going to get murdered. But not before they got the names of his contacts at the testing facility. After that though, Turner can bet it’s going to be a slow death. Geoff doesn’t take kindly to this sort of betrayal.

He’s not a fan of most kinds of betrayal, really.

Turner’s men had lowered a ramp and rolled a large, wheeled package down the slope. It took Ryan a moment to recognise the shapes in the gloom, but when he did, he raised an eyebrow.

The package was a helicopter, but in pieces. The body of the helicopter made up most of the package, but Ryan also saw the tail and the blades arranged neatly next to it. The pieces were an unusual navy blue, almost black, and a very close match to the night sky. Five blades meant that the craft was probably a Buzzard Attack Chopper, but they weren’t nearly as expensive as this. Must be all those extra upgrades Turner was talking about.

“They were even able to put the stealth paint on.” Turner continued, as the thugs and men swapped the goods. “Total invisibility from RADAR and it will even change its tint based on the sky’s colour at the time.”

“You don’t need to sell it to me, Turner.” Sam said. “I’ve already accepted the deal.”

“I know, I know. I just think you should be aware of exactly how valuable this thing is- and how much effort it was to get it for you.”

Sam raised an eyebrow at him, and didn’t reply.

“What I’m saying is, is I’m committed to your cause.” Turner explained. “I’ve cancelled my dealings with almost every other crew in Los Santos.”

Sam narrowed his eyes.

“It’s the ‘almost’ that concerns me.”

“I’m doing things slowly with the FAHC. I don’t want them to get suspicious or start asking questions.”

Well, it’s probably a little late for that.

“Don’t worry about Ramsey and his minions,” Sam said, patting the tail of the helicopter as the men carried it past him, “I’m sure they won’t be a problem for long.”

The men finished loading the helicopter pieces and the thugs carried the last bricks into Turner’s truck. The transaction complete, Turner and Sam shook hands again and then Turner drove away. As was polite, none of Sam’s men moved until the last of Turner’s dust had begun to move in the slight breeze. It was almost impossible to see the dust settle- dusk had long passed and true night fell over the scrapyard. With the darkness came an almost palpable relief from Sam’s men.

“Now.” Geoff breathed over the comms.

Michael’s bullet tore through the air and evaporated the tallest thug’s head into a fine mist. Gavin threw two smoke grenades, one after the other, and chaos erupted across the scrapyard.

Ryan climbed to the lip of the ditch and pulled out his assault rifle. There were a few thugs running in from the slope where he and Jack had come from, and from this angle they made easy targets. Ryan picked off three of them with ease.

“Vagabond,” Jeremy’s voice called out over the comms, “Machete guy is heading your way.”

“Thanks for the heads up.”

He turned and yep- there he was, running across the scrapyard with his machete out. Ryan pulled his own blade from his belt- not one of his throwing knives, though he was tempted. Instead, he removed his Bowie knife from its sheath, a monster of a knife with a ten inch blade.

Machete guy looked unimpressed. Ryan stood up and tightened his grip on the Bowie.

Machete guy lunged, his blade curving in a sharp arc towards Ryan.

Ryan threw a stone he’d picked up and concealed in his other hand, as hard and as fast as he could. The rock clipped the side of Machete guy’s head and his head snapped back, a wet ‘thunk’ coming from the impact. Machete guy staggered and clutched at his head.

Ryan charged in with the Bowie and slashed once, long and deep across the guy’s stomach. An awful smell filled the air, and Machete guy screamed and fell to his knees. He vomited.

Ryan winkled his nose and darted towards the main scrapyard building, heading for cover.

“Awww,” Jeremy said. “I was looking forward to a cool knife fight.”

“Did you see the size of that guy’s machete?” Ryan replied. “No way. He could have stabbed me.”

“Jeremy!” Gavin yelled over the comms. Ryan winced. “Little help over here?”

“Coming, coming!”

“Where are you guys?” Ryan asked.

“Near that big stack of boat parts by the back,” Jeremy answered. “Pink Hair picked up the tall guy’s minigun and Gavin’s- okay, now we’re _both_ pinned.”

“I’ll flank her.”

Ryan crouched low and darted over towards the maze of old vehicles and rusty parts. A few bullets hit the ground near his feet but a well-timed grenade from Geoff, off to his left, ended that quickly.

He followed the sound of heavy fire to the back of the piles, near the edge of the scrapyard. Peering out from around an old trailer, he saw the stack of boats and the mountain of a woman in front of it, spraying it with bullets. He lifted and aimed his assault rifle and plugged half a dozen rounds into her midsection.

Pink Hair dropped like a stone. Gavin and Jeremy meekly poked their heads out from behind the boats.

“She dead?” Gavin shouted.

“As a doornail. We should grab that minigun. I bet Michael’d like one.”

Jeremy came out from behind the boats and picked up the minigun. He nodded at the weight and started walking back into the fray.

“Come on then!” He called out.

“Ah, shit.” Geoff said over the comms. “Sam’s made it to the car and one of the thugs has got the truck. Michael, see if you can take out the truck driver. Everyone else- head to Sam.”

“Shit, shit!” Jeremy said, and dropped the minigun. He and Gavin sprinted through the scrap to the entrance.

“I’m going to head to Jack,” Ryan said, and turned to jump over the fence behind the boats. “We might be able to cut him off when he goes down the road.”

“I hear you.” Jack said. “Going to the road now.”

There were three roads in and out of the scrapyard. Two of them led deeper into the oil fields but one of the roads fed straight into East Los Santos, where Sam could easily lose them. He knew the area much better than they did. When they’d planned this evening they’d kept that road in mind as an escape route.

Ryan jogged over to the rocky outcrop, hugging the scrapyard fence. It was almost too dark to see, and a twisted ankle here could ruin everything-

Something incredibly hard and fast slammed into his face, making him cry out and sending him reeling.

The mask protected him a little bit, but the force of the blow sent stars dancing in front of his eyes. He stumbled backwards, tripped on a loose stone and fell over.

“Oh, fucking shit!” A young, terrified voice said.

Ryan tried to stand up, maybe defend himself, but his head was ringing and throbbing and the best he could do was fall back down onto the rocks.

“Are you one of ours? I’m so, so sorry man!” The voice continued. Ryan squinted up at him in the low light. Was that one of the _teenagers_?! The kid barely looked sixteen. He also held his shotgun like a baseball bat, clearly too scared to think properly.

“Fuck, sorry. Please don’t tell Sam, okay?”

The kid sprinted off into the darkness. Ryan groaned.

“Vagabond?” Jack said over the comms. “Where are you?”

Ryan shakily raised a hand to his earpiece.

“I’m”-

He stopped, because he had to lift the mask off the bottom of his face and throw up.

“Vagabond, are you okay?! Where are you?”

“Eugh, I’m fine, I’m”-

He paused to throw up again.

_Lord,_ his head hurt. Everything spun. Too many things happened too quickly. He ignored the voices on the comms and tried to clear his head.

Everything was too loud. And fuzzy.

“Vagabond? Vaga- Ryan!” Geoff said, not through the comms but from somewhere close by. A few seconds later he felt warm hands lift the mask off his face and check his pulse.

“Ryan, buddy,” Geoff continued, “You with me?”

Ryan winced, but managed to meet his eyes. He tried to nod, but everything sloshed around in his head and he had to stop. He settled for swatting Geoff’s concerned hands away.

“I think he’s got a concussion.” Geoff said, probably to the rest of them over the comms. “Jack, come help me get him to the car. We’re just behind the fence near the rocks.”

“I got the driver!” Michael shouted. Ryan winced again and pulled the earpiece out. Geoff took it from him.

“Come on, up we go.”

Geoff helped Ryan stand, but he swayed and almost fell over again. Geoff put one of Ryan’s arms over his shoulders and wrapped one of his own around Ryan’s waist. The world twisted and spun, and he felt like throwing up again.

“Sorry, Geoff, I just”-

“No, it’s fine, it’s fine.”

“But Sam”-

“Don’t worry about him. Just focus on not vomiting down my front.”

Jack came out of the gloom and supported Ryan’s other side. Together they made their way over the rocks down to the car, Geoff’s Roosevelt. Michael sat in the driver’s seat, while Jeremy and Gavin leaned against the doors. The faint sound of sirens in the distance grew louder.

“You alright?” Gavin asked.

“He’s definitely concussed.” Jack said. “Not too badly though. Doesn’t seem like he’s gonna lose consciousness on us.”

“What happened?” Jeremy asked.

Ryan grimaced.

“Got smacked with a shotgun by one of the teenagers.”

Ryan heard Michael laughing from the driver’s seat.

“Damn those meddling kids!” He said in a raspy voice.

“Come on, you’re only a couple of years older than them!” Ryan retorted. He got into the back with Gavin, Geoff and Jack. Jeremy rode shotgun next to Michael. He pulled away and drove towards the city.

“That still makes you the old man in this situation.”

“An old man who can still kick your head in.”

“Try me when you can stand up straight, gramps.”

“Hey, shut up.” Geoff said. “What happened with Sam, guys?”

“We shot at him,” Jeremy said, “but his armoured car was very well armoured.”

“I got one of his tyres though.” Gavin added. “So he’ll have an uncomfortable ride home.”

Geoff laughed. “Well, at least he didn’t get the package. It looked like some sort of helicopter?”

“Yeah, it was.” Michael said. “I shot the driver but the truck ended up rolling off the road, so I couldn’t drive it back to the apartment. The police will get it, but it’s better than Sam having it.”

“Ryan,” Jack said, “Let me check how serious the concussion is. What day is it?”

“Friday.”

“What’s thirty six plus thirty seven?”

“Um, seventy three?”

“Follow my finger with your eyes.”

Ryan did. He was already feeling a little less light-headed and the world was settling around him.

“Yeah, I think you’ll be fine. Stay in bed a few days, take some pain meds, keep the lights dim.”

“Whatever you say, Doctor Pattillo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You leave your pistol behind again, Ryan?” Michael asked. He and Ryan sat around the kitchen table, nursing mugs of tea.  
> “Not this time.” Ryan answered. “Just my dignity.”  
> “So nothing valuable then.”  
> Ryan sighed. “Laugh it up while you still can.”  
> Michael grinned. “I’ve got plenty of time. You’ve got two more days of Pattillo-instructed bed rest. You still can’t walk in a straight line, so I’m not worried.”  
> “Yeah well, when I- Gah!”  
> Ryan almost jumped out of his seat when Gavin came up behind him and dropped something into his lap.  
> “Is this a teddy bear?”  
> “It’s a get well soon bear!” Gavin said. “Geoff’s idea. It’ll protect you if that nasty teen comes back.”  
> Ryan sighed again, and dropped his head to the kitchen table.


	4. The Fourth Time

Ryan wasn’t a particularly big fan of the Grand Senora Desert. The city was far more comfortable and familiar, with its hundreds of side streets and back alleys and quiet carparks. Out here in the desert everything was exposed and spread-out, and Ryan’s preferred terrain was somewhere he could blend in and sneak around.

Still, sometimes it was nice to get out of the city and go somewhere different. Geoff hadn’t been too busy recently, so he’d organised for all of them to help out one of his old friends, a Mr Philips or something, with a gang problem he had at his airfield. Apparently one of the smaller gangs in the area had begun using the Sandy Shores Airstrip as a trading post for their growing arms dealing business, and the owner hadn’t been too happy about it. Geoff told the rest of them that the gang was storing all their profit in a large safe at the back of the hangar, and the owner said they could keep whatever was inside as payment.

It sounded a little… low pay to Ryan, but Geoff had told him not to worry about the money and to just come along. They really, really needed this guy on their side, Geoff said. It was far more important for the Fakes to be on his good side than the money, especially with the Harveys growing more powerful.

Geoff pulled up in a non-descript van behind a low stretch of rocky hills a little south of the airstrip. It was the late afternoon, around six-ish, and the sun was low in the sky. Long shadows from the hills lay across the main road about two hundred feet to their right.

Jack and Gavin would draw the gang’s attention from the right, letting them believe the danger would come from the road. Michael, Ryan, Jeremy, and Geoff would sneak across the landing strips and hide behind the secondary hangar, next to the control tower. Once they had the setting sun on their side it would be an easy enough job to pick off whatever gang members Jack and Gavin had left. Then it was a simple matter of taking the safe with them in the gang’s own cargobob that waited for them on the helicopter pad before the police came.

It was not going to be a difficult job. Ryan had been itching to head out into the field again after the disaster that was the Harvey-Turner deal a fortnight ago.

The six of them climbed to the top of the rocky hill and looked towards the hangar. From this distance, it was impossible for Ryan to see more of the gang than just a few blurred outlines, but he could make out the shape of a cargobob.

Jack pulled out his sniper rifle and rested it on a rock. Looking through the scope, he gave Geoff a thumbs up.

“They’re all down there.” Jack said, keeping his voice low. “About twenty of them. Some of them are walking around with guns but most of them are sitting in small groups.”

“Any lookouts?” Geoff asked.

“There’s one guy up in the watch tower. He’ll need to go first.”

Geoff nodded. He gestured, and Jack and Gavin headed back down the hill a short way and worked their way to the right. The four remaining Fakes waited a few minutes for them to get into position.

“Ready?” Michael asked over the comms.

“We’re ready.” Gavin replied. “Almost twisted my damn ankle on one of these rocks though.”

“You should wear hiking boots instead of designer shoes then.” Michael snorted. “Idiot.”

“Okay.” Geoff said. “We’ll go as soon as the tower guy is dead. Ready when you are, Jack.”

A few seconds later, the tiny shape of the gang member fell off the tower and tumbled to the ground. Half a second later, the sound of Jack’s rifle cracked through the air.

“Go, go!” Geoff said, and they ran down the hill.

There was still plenty of light, even with the shadows hiding the dips and divots in the hill. With a careful enough eye there should be no problems getting down.

Bullets ripped into the dirt around them for a few seconds before gunfire from the right cut it off.

Michael stumbled and tipped over forwards. Ryan darted towards him and grabbed him by the back of his collar, hauling him upright.

“You’re not distracting them enough!” Ryan shouted.

“Sorry, sorry.” Gavin grunted over the comms. “Two more guys came out of the hangar and saw you. Jack got them though, so you’re good to go.”

They made it to the bottom of the hill and sprinted across the bitumen. Gavin was right- no more bullets came their way and they made it to the second hangar unmolested, and the sounds of the fighting stayed away from them.

Ryan pulled his special carbine out and started shooting before he even made it fully behind cover. Jeremy crouched down next to him, a bullpup rifle in his hand, and covered him when he stopped to reload. A few shouts emanated from the gang’s direction.

Ryan smirked, the line of his lips covered by the mask but he was sure the others could see the way his eyes lit up.

Maybe the desert wasn’t his ideal terrain but he was in his element in a gunfight.

Ryan darted out from behind cover when Michael and Geoff started shooting. Keeping low, he circled around the back of the rubbish and headed towards the rear of the main hangar.

A gang member appeared in front of him, and swung around to face him. Ryan was faster. He plugged three bullets into his chest and the thug fell on the ground on his back. Two more came in to view to his right, using the bus for cover but not from him. Ryan raised the carbine’s sights to his eye and pulled the trigger twice. Two headshots.

He heard feet crunch on loose stones behind him. Ryan kicked his leg out, catching a thug in the stomach as he rounded the corner of the hangar. He grunted and stumbled back, distracted long enough for Ryan to push the barrel of the carbine under the guy’s chin and pull the trigger. The body dropped lifelessly to the ground.

Ryan might change his mind about the desert. It was proving to be enjoyable after all.

“Two behind you, Vagabond.” Jeremy said over the comms. “They must have been inside the second hangar.”

“Thanks for the heads up.”

Ryan pressed his back against the wall of the control tower and looked around the corner. Two men were trying to sneak around to the back of the second hangar, presumably to flank Geoff and Michael. They weren’t looking his way. Ryan broke cover and snuck up behind them.

They look around the edge of the hangar, unaware Ryan was directly behind them. When one of them raised their rifle to aim around the corner, Ryan darted his hand out and snatched the weapon from his hands. He used it to fire two rounds point blank into the other’s chest. The unarmed gang member turned around and, recognising Ryan’s mask, fainted right there on the dirt.

Ryan stared at the fainted man on the ground for a second, not really sure what to do next. Then he shook his head, dropped the rifle next to the body, and carried on. It’s a shame Gavin wasn’t with him to film it, because there’s no way the others would ever believe someone _fainted_ at the sight of him.

The sound of gunfire stopped. Ryan tilted his head up to listen. The airfield was quiet.

“Is that everyone?” Geoff said over the comms.

“Main hangar’s clear.” Gavin replied.

“Tower and second hangar are clear.” Michael said. “I think we got em all.”

“There’s no one else out back,” Ryan said, “but I do have someone here unconscious.”

“Does he look like he knows the combo to the safe?” Geoff asked.

“Nah. Just a goon.”

“Damn. That would have saved us a lot of effort. Leave him there then, the police will pick him up in a few minutes.”

There were no approaching sirens in the distance yet. They had a little bit of time to sort out the safe.

They all met up in the main hangar. It was dirty, and cluttered with stacks of papers and boxes. A hole in the ceiling cast a dust-speckled beam of light across the floor. Ryan flicked though one of the paper stacks while Jeremy, Jack, and Michael approached the safe in the back, Michael singing the Pokemon theme song. Gavin and Geoff stood at the entrance of the hangar, keeping a lookout for the police or any concerned locals who heard the fight.

“How the fuck did they get this in here?” Michael asked. He kicked the side of the safe. “Thing must weigh a thousand pounds.”

Jeremy sighed. He bent down and flicked something near the base of the safe. There was a small clicking sound. Jeremy got back up and pulled the safe away from the wall.

“Wheels, Michael.”

“That… makes sense.”

Something on one of the papers caught Ryan’s attention.

“Gavin?”

“Yeah? What?”

“Do any of these addresses sound familiar?”

Ryan read out a short list of places. Gavin frowned and nodded.

“One or two of those places are known Harveys safe houses.”

“I thought so, but I wasn’t sure.”

“Christ.” Geoff said. “Is everyone working for the fucking Harveys crew now?”

Gavin put his hand up. “I’m not!”

Geoff hit him.

“Maybe not working for,” Jack stressed, “just selling weapons to. The Harveys are getting ready for the big fight just as we are.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Geoff said. “Can we go now?”

Jack left to set up the cargobob while Jeremy and Michael rolled the safe to the helicopter pad. Gavin and Ryan collected whatever documents they thought looked important.

Geoff found a mini fridge sitting under a desk and raided it. He carried an armful of beer and a bottle of whiskey out to the helicopter.

Ryan could make out the sound of police in the distance now. Their window was closing.

“Come on, get in, get in.” Jack ushered them inside. The back of the cargobob was spacious, surprisingly. Ryan sat at the back with a stack of papers on his lap and his special carbine between his legs. The Lads piled in the back with him and Geoff took the front passenger seat.

“Is the safe secure?” Geoff asked.

Jack turned the cargobob on. The whirling blades smothered the noise of the police cruisers.

“We’re about to find out.”

The cargobob lifted up from the ground and quickly climbed. There was a jolt, and the helicopter climbed a little more slowly. The cargobob swayed to both sides as the safe moved freely below them.

Gavin cracked a grin at Michael and Jeremy.

“We did it boys!”

Geoff passed back the beers and the Lads made a toast, laughing and shouting.

 “Home?” Jack asked.

“Yep.” Geoff replied. “But head east and cut through the mountain range. The police in Los Santos City will have time to set something up if we head straight for them. Circling around will lose this bunch below us too.”

Michael peered out the open door.

“Should we, I don’t know, shoot them?”

“Not much point.” Geoff said. “We’ll lose them soon enough over the mountains.”

The San Chianski Mountain Range was pretty much empty, except for one research lab hidden somewhere between the peaks. There would be very few people there to raise a ruckus about a suspicious cargobob hauling a safe.

Ryan began to read through some of the papers he’d stolen. The mission had turned out better than expected.

“Uh oh.” Jack said.

A loud beeping noise came from the cockpit.

“Everything okay up there?” Ryan called out.

“The cargobob took some damage in the firefight. I think a propeller’s damaged.”

Great.

“Don’t do anything until we’re over the mountains.” Geoff said. “We can drop the safe off there and come back for it later. That would ease some of the strain on the propeller, right?”

Jack shrugged.

“Sure, why not?”

He steered the cargobob towards the nearest mountain peak. Ryan held on to a handle just above his seat. The cargobob rocked in a sudden air current, and Ryan thought he saw a few wisps of smoke out the open door.

The cargobob suddenly shot up a few feet. Four seconds later, a loud crash echoed up from the peak below.

“The safe has been deployed.” Gavin said.

“Okay guys,” Michael said, “Everyone remember what mountain this is!”

Gavin huffed out a laugh. Jeremy reached out and grabbed the handle above his head in a vice-like grip.

“Did it work?” Geoff asked.

A small explosion shook the cargobob. The beeping grew louder and the back of the helicopter swung around. The outside world spun in a smoky circle.

“I’m gonna guess no.” Jack replied. “Everybody get ready to bail! There should be parachutes under the seats!” He fought with the controls to give them as much height as possible.

Ryan knocked his stack of papers to the side and felt around under his seat. A few seconds of scrambling helped him find the corner of something, and he pulled it out from under the seat. It was a parachute. He strapped his carbine to his back and slipped his arms through the chute straps, swapping his hands around the handle for support against the shaking floor of the cargobob.

He saw Jeremy struggling with a buckle on his parachute. He didn’t want to let go of the handle and connect it, but his other hand was shaking too much. Ryan let go of his own support and staggered over to him.

“First time?” Ryan shouted over the wind as he fixed Jeremy’s buckle.

Jeremy shook his head.

“Heights.”

Ryan’s earpiece crackled to life.

“You all have a parachute on?” Geoff asked.

“We’re all good back here.” Ryan replied.

“Then abandon ship!”

Geoff opened the passenger door and jumped out. Gavin and Michael quickly followed.

“Come on.” Ryan said, and led Jeremy to the open door. Once they were by the opening, he put a comforting hand on Jeremy’s shoulder.

“You ready?”

Jeremy took a deep breath.

“As I’ll”-

Ryan pushed him out of the cargobob.

As his scream disappeared, Ryan signalled to Jack that they were all out and jumped out himself.

The air, as always, is freezing cold. And it gets inside the mask and makes any loose parts flap against his head. But he grinned and executed a summersault before pulling his chute and letting gravity pull him down at a much gentler rate.

Ahead of him were four brightly coloured chutes. He craned his head back and up and found Jack with his own chute pulled, following him.

“Okay so- oh shit!” Geoff said over the comms. He abruptly swung to the right as a smoking cargobob fell out of the sky right next to him. “Okay so head to the right. There’s a road somewhere that way we can steal a car from and get back to the city.”

Ryan swung his legs in the harness and looked around. The view from up here was absolutely gorgeous, especially with the setting sun to his back. The mountains cast long shadows across the ocean far below. A gentle sea breeze tugged at the chute.

Okay, the mission hadn’t gone perfectly, but it was salvageable. And the view was nice. What more could you ask for?

The cargobob smashed into the side of a nearby mountain and exploded into flames. A pillar of smoke ascended into the sky and sent sparks and embers swirling around in the air. The view grew nicer.

A mountain cut the air in front of them. Four chutes spiralled down and to the right, in the direction of the road.

Now, there were no teenagers around to hit him with a rifle. No security guards with Tasers, no cars suddenly appearing, and Jeremy and Gavin weren’t egging him on. There was no discernible reason or distraction then for Ryan to pull on the chute and head down to the _left_ of the mountain instead of the right.

He just.

Didn’t _think_.

“Where the fuck are you going, Vagabond?” Jack said, as he followed the others down the right side of the mountain.

“I don’t know!”

By the time Ryan worked out what he was doing the others were out of sight.

“What’s he done?” Michael asked.

“Gone and been an absolute _moron_ , is what.” Jack replied. “He’s on the other side of the mountain.”

Geoff groaned.

“We’ll meet you at the road then?”

“Uhhh, yep. As soon as I find a place to land.” Ryan replied. “It’s pretty much just cliffs on this side.”

He was still a fair few hundred feet above sea level. All the land available to land on was either too steep or jagged to do so safely, or peppered with spindly trees he could get stuck on. He’d just have to keep gliding until he came across a better spot.

It was going to be a _long_ walk back to the others.

He continued descending for a good thirty seconds or so before a stronger sea breeze hit his chute. The breeze sent him lurching closer to the cliffs, and he struggled to correct the motion.

Another gust of wind hit him, one too strong to fight back against, and the chute decided to follow a very fast collision course towards the cliff face.

“Fuck!”

He hit the side of the cliff with enough force to knock the breath out of him. The sharp rocks on the cliff must have torn a hole in the chute fabric, because Ryan dropped out of the sky like a stone.

He skidded a short distance down the cliff face, only a few feet, until the drop turned into a steep valley. Trying to catch his breath, he scrambled for a handhold to stop his dangerous tumble down the slope. The ropes of the parachute wrapped around him, pinning one of his arms to his side. The other smacked painfully into a stone. His foot slipped through the leaves of a bush.

The slope turned quickly into another cliff. Unable to grab anything, Ryan slid off the lip and fell to the ground far below.

He stopped abruptly, the force of the parachute straps hitting his chest enough to bruise. Ryan gasped for air, and turned his head up to see what stopped his fall.

A branch from one of the spindly trees was sticking out from the edge of the cliff. His foot was tangled up in the parachute ropes and those ropes were further tangled in the branch.

He held himself extremely still. That branch didn’t look nearly strong enough to hold his weight, let alone the weight of the parachute and his weapons as well. Any sudden movement could be his last.

But looking around, he didn’t see any of the parachute fabric. If the branch wasn’t strong enough to hold him up, then something else must be. The parachute fabric getting caught on that bush he slipped through earlier was a reasonable explanation.

Ryan heaved a great sigh of relief. He wasn’t about to die.

With the adrenaline gone, all his aches and pains came back full force into focus. His side and chest burned from when he hit the cliff and when the parachute straps stopped his fall. His right arm throbbed where it was pinned to his side by the ropes and his hand was bleeding. He was also upside down.

It was going to be a long and _painful_ walk back to the others.

Still, he should be thankful he was alive. Only sheer dumb luck stopped him from turning to paste on the rocks below.

“Guys? Hey!” Ryan said.

No reply.

He lifted his bleeding hand to his ear and felt around for his earpiece.

Not there.

He checked his other ear just to be sure. Also not there. It probably fell out when he tumbled down the slope.

Shit shit _shit_.

That was manageable, actually. The earpiece was most likely still up there over the lip of the cliff. All he had to do was climb up and get it.

He looked down.

The cliff wasn’t a single steep drop, he realised, now that he was looking at it properly. About twenty feet below him there was a narrow ledge seven or eight feet wide. Then it fell again for at least a hundred feet before ending in waves crashing over jagged rocks. If he fell off the branch, it wouldn’t be enough to kill him outright because of the ledge. No, it would be a slow, painful death.

A bit of panic rose in his chest. He fought to stuff it down. He couldn’t afford to let panic dictate his actions, especially now in this critical juncture. He needed to think.

His phone. He had a phone too. But he couldn’t reach it where he was, upside down and hanging over the edge of a cliff. No, he’d need to right himself and untangle himself from the ropes. That seemed like a reasonable course of action.

He reached up, straining, and managed to grab hold of a bunch of leaves from the branch. Chest aching, he had to stop and fall back out over the open air.

He took a few deep breaths. No reason to give up yet. Nothing in his situation had changed, which was not a bad thing. He just needed to try again, more slowly.

Ryan slid his injured hand down his side, following the direction of the rope. Slowly, very slowly, he inched his way up into a sitting position using the rope wrapped around him. Once he was mostly upright, he released the rope and snapped his hand out to grab the branch.

One problem solved. He wasn’t upside down anymore.

Thank God. He saved the pain in his chest at the cost of his abdominals. At the end of this, he better be able to give Michael a run for his money for nicest abs in the FAHC.

Now that he was sitting up, it was much easier to wiggle his right arm around until it was free. From there he could grab his phone and see if it had any signal.

Of course not. He was out in the middle of nowhere, with no civilization except one road for miles and miles. And his phone now had a nasty crack in the centre of the screen. Fantastic.

The next thing to do was to free his foot. The ropes binding his foot to the branch were also the same ones holding the rest of his weight, so it was probably not the best idea to cut through the ropes. The sun was well beneath the horizon now, and he was in the shadow of a mountain, so light was limited. He worked tirelessly, tugging and pulling at the ropes until he felt his foot slip free.

Nice to see the hours of knot work and escape practice were paying off.

By the time his foot was free, it was almost completely dark. Ryan checked his phone and figured maybe an hour had passed since he hit the cliff. The sea wind was finding its way under his clothes and chilling him to the bone, even with his leather jacket on. It wasn’t designed for these kind of conditions, and the night was only going to get cooler. Ryan thanked his lucky stars it wasn’t the middle of winter, otherwise he’d be a dead man for sure.

Was his crew out looking for him? They probably heard him cry out when he hit the cliff. But he also said he’d meet them by the road, so they might just be waiting for him there. Then again, he hadn’t said anything over the comms in an hour. Hasn’t answered his phone either. They might be assuming the worst.

No, they’ll probably assume something like his current situation had happened, and they’d be right. It’s very likely they’re out looking for him right now. After all, if the situation was reversed for any of them, he’d be out searching for them until he either found them or dropped dead from exhaustion.

The most important thing for him to do now was to not panic, and be patient. His crew would come for him.

The branch creaked and groaned, swaying in the sea breeze.

Okay, maybe the most important thing was to get off the branch and back onto the cliff.

Ryan inched his way up the branch, feeling out the path in front of him before shuffling forwards. One terrifying minute later, his foot hit the lip of the cliff and his whole body sagged. Once he dropped off the branch and felt solid ground beneath him, he felt an almost giddy relief.

Another problem solved.

Next was what he should do now he wasn’t going to fall to his death. The slope was too steep to climb and he couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him anyway. The chances of him slipping and falling back over the cliff were high. He kept a tight grip around the trunk of the tree that saved his life.

What you’re meant to do in a situation like this is just to stay put, but Ryan wasn’t sure that was the best thing to do. He wasn’t dressed for the climate- apart from the leather jacket he was dressed for the desert. It was also night, so anyone trying to find him would have a very difficult time. The mountain range stretched for miles, and that would take time to search. It would also take time for his crew to scrounge up a helicopter from somewhere. Time that might be better spent than just sitting around waiting.

What was he supposed to do then? He could fiddle around on his phone and hope he got reception, but it was a thin chance and he wanted to save the battery. He could try to sleep, but the air was freezing and there could be coyotes nearby. Finding his earpiece was also out- it was too dark and windy to go exploring too close to the cliff.

No, what he should do is wait out the night and try to signal his crew in the morning. Ryan pulled a knife from a sheath on his leg and cut through the ropes connecting him and the parachute. With a few strong tugs, the parachute fabric came free from whatever it was stuck on. Now he had something to protect him from the wind and keep out some of the cold.

Ryan slid the knife back into its sheath and pulled out his special carbine. Whether it was for the coyotes or just because it made him feel safer Ryan wasn’t sure, but he hunkered down in front of the tree with it resting in his grip.

It was going to be a long night.

He fell into an uneasy sleep a few hours later, his injuries and exhaustion getting the better of him.

He was roused some time later by the sound of helicopter blades.

Faint and whispering on the wind, it was enough to wake him up and make his heart beat faster.

It had to be his crew- there was no-one  else with any reason to be out here.

Ryan fumbled around in his pockets for his phone. Pressing a few buttons, he took pictures of the darkness, briefly lighting up the slope in the camera flash.

His crew was nearby. They would find him.

The sound of helicopter blades grew louder. Ryan let out a giddy laugh. They had come for him. Of course they had.

The cargobob came out of the gloom quickly, this one thankfully not smoking or throwing sparks. Ryan fell to his knees at the sight.

The side door opened and the concerned face of Geoff stared back at him.

“Ryan! Are you okay?” Geoff shouted over the racket of the helicopter blades.

“I’m fine!” Ryan shouted back.

The parachute fabric fluttered away and out of sight in the strong wind.

Gavin, Michael, and Jeremy poked their heads around the doorframe. They looked tired, but relieved. Ryan imagined he looked about the same. He saw Jack up in the pilot’s seat as well.

“You need to jump!” Michael shouted. Ryan heard him perfectly over the background roar. “This is as close as Jack can get us!”

Ryan raised his hand in confirmation and stood up. His injuries burned and the wind beat at him, but he stood. And he jumped.

Just as he left the ground, his foot, the one that hit the bush, gave way.

Ryan’s hands hit the floor of the cargobob and then slid out.

Ryan fell.

He stopped abruptly, someone grabbing part of the parachute harness he still wore, and hauled him the rest of the way in. The ground tilted as Jack pulled away from the cliff. Ryan took a few deep, calming breaths as he laid on the floor, trying to stop his heart from hammering away in his chest.

Four exhausted, relieved, and concerned faces stared down at him from above.

“Jesus Christ Ryan!” Gavin said. “What the hell were you _thinking_?”

“Going off like that!” Geoff continued. “Almost getting killed, stuck up there on the side of a fucking mountain. Look at you. You look half dead.”

Ryan pulled his mask off threw it on the floor of the cargobob. He started to shiver.

“I don’t know, my brain just… turned off. I had a moment, you know? And, thanks for coming back for me.”

Any anger around him evaporated into concern. Michael opened an overhead hangar and pulled out a blanket, and passed it to Ryan.

“We knew something was up when you shouted over the comms.” Michael said. “Jeremy waited for you by the road, Gav and I headed into Sandy Shores looking for a chopper. Geoff and Jack called just about everyone they knew for a chopper too, I think.”

“We’re not really angry, Ryan.” Geoff said. “It’s just, boy, you scared the shit out of me. Don’t do that again.”

“I’ll try not to. Getting stuck on the side of a mountain for several hours is not something I want to repeat.”

Gavin smirked at him.

“How can anyone think you’re scary at all? Look at you, all wrapped up in that blanket. Lemme get my phone out.”

Ryan’s face flamed.

“You can drop me back on the cliff, thanks Jack.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Five stiches in your hand,” Jack said, “two in your foot, a cracked rib, and about a hundred small cuts and bruises.” He finished wrapping some gauze around Ryan’s hand. Ryan stared out of the kitchen window over Los Santos. It was very early in the morning. “It was a pretty bad day for you.”  
> “It’s been a pretty bad month, Jack.” Ryan replied. “Do you… do you think I’m losing my edge?”  
> Jack laughed. “Oh, Ryan. Everyone outside this apartment thinks you’re invincible. You’re allowed to have a few bad days I think. You’re only human, after all.”  
> “But you don’t think”-  
> -“No I don’t. It’s not like Geoff’s going to kick you out of the crew because you mess up or something.”  
> “Well, maybe he should. It’s risky having a liability around.”  
> “That’s not you though. You’re the Vagabond, Ryan. You’re not some loose cannon, not anymore. We all trust you to have our backs. The least you could do is trust us to have yours.”  
> Jack beamed at him, and Ryan offered a faint smile in return. The words were meant to comfort him, but instead they left low and sickly anxiety in his gut. Why should they trust him if he couldn’t trust himself?   
> His crew’s blind faith in him was going to be their downfall.


	5. The Fifth (But Definitely Not the Last) Time

The first thing Ryan did when he woke up was fall out of bed. He banged his hip into the corner of the kitchen counter, poured hot coffee over himself, and ran headfirst into Gavin in a hallway. He was already suffering minor burns and a few nasty bruises and he hadn’t even left the apartment.

“Ow, Christ,” Gavin said, desperately struggling not to drop his laptop, “You’d think by now you’d have learnt how to watch where you’re going.”

“Sorry, Gavin. Head’s in a weird place today.”

“Well you’d better put it back where it belongs. I think Geoff wants to talk to you.” Gavin brushed past him and hurried down the hallway. “The Harveys are making a move!” Gavin called out behind him.

When Ryan entered the living room he was immediately surrounded by chaos. Geoff poured over maps hastily pinned to the wall while Jack gave him locations from someone on the phone. Michael was also on the phone, speaking animatedly while tossing explosives in a duffel bag. Jeremy pushed past him, a rifle in one hand and a stack of papers in the other, to hand to Geoff.

“Emails from our contacts in the police department.” Jeremy said as he handed the pages to Geoff. “They’ve decided to stay out of things and let the gangs sort themselves out. So we won’t have to deal with roadblocks here, here, and here…” Jeremy pointed.

“Ah, fuck.” Jack sighed. “Geoff! They’ve torched Lindsay’s apartment.”

“She alright?” Geoff asked.

“Yeah, she wasn’t home.”

“Good. Find her and send her and the B Team to South Los Santos. We can hit them back. They’ve got a few safe houses around there.”

Michael zipped up the duffel bag and hauled it over one shoulder.

“Ryan, do you want to come with me to the docks? Me and a couple of mercs are gonna light up their boats n shit.”

“He can’t.” Geoff cut in. “I need him. We’ve got a tip off about where Turner’s holed up. Fudge Lane, East Los Santos. Can you get him for us?”

“Does he need to be alive?” Ryan asked.

“Preferred, but not necessary. We can use him to find out where Harveys leader Sam is. Gavin’s working on it too, but we’re stretched pretty thin right now.”

“Can I take Jeremy with me?”

“Sorry Ryan.” Jeremy replied. “I’m headed Downtown in a few minutes.”

Geoff marked Lindsay’s apartment on the map with a red marker. “I’m splitting us up so we can cover as much ground as possible. It’s like the Harveys are trying to wage war on a gazillion fronts. I’ll gather you all back in once Gavin finds Sam, and we can do the final assault together. It’s about time we brought this fucker down- I’m glad he’s finally shown his hand.”

Ryan nodded. “I’ll be back in four hours, max.”

“Geoff,” Jack called out. “Gunfight broke out in the park down the road.”

“Can you handle it and come back as fast as you can?”

“Yep.”

“Go, then.”

Jack walked quickly out of the room, still talking on the phone. Michael and Jeremy followed him out, and the living room felt far too quiet all of a sudden.

Geoff groaned and planted his head on the wall.

“Eugh. Sam’s coming on pretty strong, don’t you think?”

“You think he might be compensating for something?”

Geoff snorted. “Very funny. Go get Turner, Ryan, and come back quickly alright?”

“As fast as I can drag him.”

 

 *******

 

Many of the houses on Fudge Lane were worse for wear, and the few business which dotted the street looked closed, despite it being midmorning on a weekday. On the end of the street was a small warehouse, and it was here Ryan headed.

He snuck around the back of the building, taking cover behind a freight car as a guard made their rounds. The next time they walked past, Ryan pulled the guy towards him and out of sight from the main building, behind the freight car. He struggled for almost a minute before Ryan’s chokehold put him to sleep, and then Ryan slit his throat. Couldn’t risk him waking up the middle of things.

The back door was unlocked and Ryan let himself in. Putting his knife away, he drew his silenced pistol and carefully made his way around the building. A few footsteps echoed around the space, far apart and out of sight. There was a smaller, second level above him that overlooked the floor but Ryan couldn’t see a staircase up to it yet. If he was lucky he could get up there without alerting anyone. If Turner was indeed here he’d be up there, overseeing the activity below.

Usually places like these were crawling with mercenaries and gang members. After all, all the warehouses Geoff owned were like that, but this one was surprisingly empty. Maybe Sam ran things differently. Still, something heavy settled in the pit of his stomach and he proceeded more cautiously. Geoff said Turner was here. He’d find him and get him out as quickly as possible.

One of the sets of footsteps grew louder. As the guard came into view Ryan pistol-whipped him across the face and he dropped like a sack of bricks. The quiet in the warehouse wouldn’t have covered the sound of a bullet so Ryan had to improvise. Silencers made shots quieter but they weren’t perfect. Ryan dragged the body behind a stack of barrels and slit his throat, out of sight. He spent a few seconds searching the corpse for anything that might help him, like a key card or some ID, but the guy wasn’t carrying anything useful.

He made his way around the side of the building, sticking to the shadows, and eventually came across the staircase. There were still two people on this level somewhere, Ryan estimated, who shouldn’t be too difficult to take out. Might even be able to avoid them altogether.

He climbed the stairs two at a time, and stuck close to the left hand side of the staircase to avoid creaking. Ryan peeked his head over the last few stairs and looked around. There was no-one at the top of the staircase, so he climbed the last few stairs. The second level was mostly open and surrounded with low railings, and the first floor was visible under it. The space was littered with filing cabinets in little islands over the level, so Ryan assumed this level was for paperwork-documents and information too sensitive to store online.

Ryan wished he had more time to do a thorough sweep of the warehouse. Take Jeremy or Michael with him and make sure it was cleared out, and then look through all the documents here. It would be nice to figure out exactly what sort of operation Sam was running.

There was a small room towards the front of the level. Ryan darted around the filing cabinets and slowly approached it. A window showed him someone inside, bent over a table working. It looked like Turner. Ryan turned the doorknob and let himself in.

An unrelenting force smashed into his side, sending him careening over the low railing and into the ground below.

The impact knocked the wind out of him. The most Ryan could do to react was try to take a breath and fight the pain in his hip. A few pieces of the railing fell to the floor next to him. His pistol clattered around somewhere at his feet.

Ouch. Who the fuck was _that_?

Two faces peered at him from the second level. One was unmistakably Turner, the other belonged to an absolute mammoth of a man, presumably the same one that pushed him over the railing.

“Out of everyone in Ramsey’s crew, I’m glad they sent you, Vagabond.” Turner sneered.

Ryan groaned and rolled onto his side. Rough hands grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him onto his knees, keeping him steady. Oh yeah. The other two people. They forced his arms behind his back and he grit his teeth against the pain of the unnatural angle. He shook his head, trying to clear it.

“The most feared man in all of Los Santos,” Turner continued, walking down the stairs, “not so scary on your knees, are you?”

“I guess we’ll find out.” Ryan replied, in his gruffest voice.

Anonymous tip? Check.

Small, little used warehouse in a bad part of the city? Check.

Target waiting for someone to snatch him? Check. Cleary, this was a set up. All the warning signs were there. And Ryan had walked right into it.

“You’re lucky Sam wants you alive.” Turner said. “Otherwise I’d pop you right here and now. God, the amount of effort it takes to get one of you on your own is enormous. _Weeks_ of planning.” Turner picked up Ryan’s pistol. “I could do it with your own gun. That’d be poetic.”

Ryan lurched to the left, knocking one of the guys holding him off balance. Ryan ripped his arm free and punched the guy on his right directly in his crotch, sending him stumbling. Before he could get to his feet the massive thug hit him in the solar plexus and he hit the ground hard. There was no air in his lungs and his abdominals felt like fire. He writhed there for a few seconds, unable to get up. The two men recovered and held him to the floor.

“Alive was Sam’s only condition.” Turner said. He crouched down next to Ryan and pulled something from his pocket. “This was almost too easy. Did I catch you on a bad day, Vagabond? Or did working for Ramsey make you soft?” He jammed something into Ryan’s neck that stung at first but soon started to burn. If Turner said anything else, Ryan missed it, because his entire world crackled and burned and faded to black.

 

 *******

 

“…ey there, he…o. You wi… us yet? Hello?”

Ryan scrunched his eyes together and groaned. His neck throbbed and his muscles ached like he’d just run a marathon. Something slapped him, probably a hand, and he forced his eyes open.

“Vagabond! You’re back with the living!” Sam said. “Thank you for joining us!”

The man in front of him was a far cry removed from the man he’d seen at the oil fields. That Sam had been aloft, reserved, and distant, but this Sam was right in Ryan’s face with a wild grin on his face. Turner stood behind him with his arms folded and a smirk on his face. Two armed guards stood a little further back, guarding a thick steel door.

“I would _hate_ to miss all the fun.” Ryan replied, gathering himself quickly. He was still wearing his mask, which was pretty unexpected, and he was tied to a chair, which was less unexpected.

“We wouldn’t want you to miss _anything_.” Turner said.

“Shut up, Turner.” Sam said. He dragged a chair across the room and sat down in front of Ryan. He sat on it back to front and took in what little of Ryan’s face he could see under the mask.

“Here’s how it’s going to work, Vagabond.” Sam continued. “I need everything you’ve got on Ramsey. Every safe house, every hidey-hole, every ally. If you do, we’ll let you go once Ramsey’s dead and you can go back to being an assassin. We won’t even take a peek under the mask, you can have my word on that. Wouldn’t that be nice? Getting to play by your own rules again? You used to be so much more ruthless, I recall. I think Turner was right. Ramsey made you soft.”

“I don’t like your rules very much either.” Ryan replied. He twisted his wrists around, testing his restraints. He wasn’t tied down with rope, he realised. His wrists were circled with metal, but he’d been in enough pairs of handcuffs to know this wasn’t them. Good God, were these _shackles_? What yea was this? The shackles were old and rusted, and if he continued trying to twist his wrists out he’d shred them to pieces.

“Well,” Sam said, leaning back a bit, “you can do this the easy way, or we can rip that pretty little mask off and show the whole world who the Vagabond really is.”

“Go on then.” Ryan said. “It’s not like I can stop you.”

Sam reached over with both hands and pulled the mask off Ryan’s head, his dirty fingernails scraping at the soft skin behind Ryan’s ears. Seeing the face paint, he grabbed his shirt sleeve and wiped it roughly over Ryan’s face. When Sam pulled the fabric away, Ryan appraised him with a cool expression.

Sam looked disappointed.

“I was expecting… scars. Or a facial tattoo. Not some regular guy.”

Turner looked pretty put off too. This wasn’t the first time he’d been compromised while wearing the mask, and Ryan knew exactly how to minimize the damage.

“Still,” Sam continued, “soon, everyone in Los Santos is going to recognise your face.”

“You’re just going to show everyone?” Ryan said. “For free? I bet there’s dozens of parties that would pay a pretty penny for the knowledge.”

Sam frowned, then looked thoughtful. Good. He’d bought his secret a little while longer. Hopefully he’d have days until Sam found the right buyer. He might think of something better in the meantime.

Or, he’d escape before then and kill Sam and Turner before they can tell anyone. He wasn’t very familiar with these restraints, and if they kept him dosed on whatever knocked him out, he didn’t like his chances of that.

“Well, there are other ways of getting information out of someone.” Sam continued.

Sam clicked his fingers and the door behind him opened. A third guard came in with a dentists tray filled with a variety of torture instruments. Ryan recognised some of them instantly. He’d used a few identical ones, after all. The third guard hurried out of the room and locked the door behind him.

“We can do this the old fashioned way,” Sam said, picking up a knife, “Or we could get a bit more… creative.” Ryan followed his gaze to a neat row of needles. He fought to keep the schooled coldness on his face.

Turner cleared his throat.

“You said I could start things off, Sam.”

“You’re right, I did!” Sam said. “Please, by all means. Rough him up for me. Oh,” he turned to the guards by the door. “Both of you look a little green around the gills. It’s about to get a bit gruesome in here, and I won’t mind if you decide to wait outside. You’ve been warned.” Sam waggled a finger at them. Both of the guards nodded and decided to wait outside. Ryan stared wistfully after them.

Turner cracked his knuckles. “I’ve been looking forward to this for a very, _very_ long time.”

His fist swung towards Ryan’s face. Ryan was careful to keep his face slack and tried to relax. Any taunt muscles would only make it worse.

The blows were relentless. He felt impacts on his face, neck, stomach. A sharp right hook split his lip and cut his cheek, and he felt his mouth fill with blood. His nose bent at an unnatural angle. He wheezed when a nasty punch to the stomach robbed him of breath. Blood dribbled out from between his teeth. His face throbbed with heat.

Ryan sagged when, a lifetime later, Turner pulled back, panting and flexing his bloodied knuckles. For one final blow he reared back and kicked Ryan in the chest, knocking the chair off balance and slamming Ryan’s head into the floor.

For the beating up until then Ryan had been silent, but he couldn’t help the pained moan that escaped him when his head exploded in agony.

“You _moron!”_ Sam shouted at Turner. Ryan vaguely listened through the haze of pain. “I need him conscious!”

Someone righted the chair, Ryan wasn’t sure who it was, and he let his head fall to his chest. Sam grabbed him by the jaw and forced him to look him in the eyes.

“You still with us Vagabond? We’re only getting started.”

Slowly, Ryan’s eyes focused on his.

Ryan spat, a glob of blood and either a chunk of his tongue or cheek came with it, and hit Sam across the mouth.

“Gravity packs a better punch than your boy Turner.” Ryan rasped, and started to laugh. It was a sloppy, relaxed laugh that most people found disturbing, especially in this context. He sounded deranged, even to his own ears.

“What’s so funny?” Turner asked. Sam dabbed at the blood on his face with a dirty rag. He didn’t seem perturbed in the least. Turner however, let his fear show on his face. Not many people could take a beating like that and come out smiling, let alone laughing, on the other end.

“I’m just thinking about what I’m going to do to you, Turner.” Ryan said. “When the rest of Ramsey’s crew comes, and they will come, you’ll wish they killed you before they hand you over to me. Once you spend a couple of days with me you’ll find there are things you can’t come back from. Things human beings aren’t meant to survive.”

Turner sneered.

“You’d better hope they all come running, because that’s the only way you’re getting out of here. But I think they’re a little tied up with Sam’s soldiers right now. You’ve only been gone a few hours. Who knows how long it will take before they realise you’re gone? Before they figure out where you are?”

And it was Turner’s turn to hit Ryan with a smug smile before he turned on his heel and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Ryan took the brief respite to look around the room he was in. He’d thought he was still in the warehouse, which was where his crew knew he was. But he took in the bare concrete walls, metal door, and lack of windows and Ryan realised he could be anywhere. Although, the fact Sam was here made him think it was the hideout Gavin was looking for. But the FAHC had been spread thin by Sam’s attacks- it was unlikely Gavin would be able to find Sam’s hideout any time soon, even if he was a brilliant hacker. Geoff simply didn’t have the manpower or the resources to spare to mount a full search and rescue while Sam attacked him.

It might take _weeks_.

Here it was- Ryan had gotten himself into something not even his crew could get him out of. He knew he could hold out against Sam for a fair while, but eventually he would break. It was just a fact. Eventually something would give. Whether it was his body, mind, or secrets, something would give.

If he gave away crew secrets or came back to broken to work, Geoff would have no choice but to drop him from the crew.

Ryan wondered if he’d ever get the chance to make it up to them. If Sam didn’t end up killing him, Geoff might finish the job.

Somehow, none of this must have crossed his face because Sam made no mention of it when he turned back around.

“My turn!” He sang, and pulled his tray of torture instruments closer. He picked up a knife and a honing blade and sharpened it, talking as he did.

“People say torture doesn’t achieve anything. You put people through too much misery and they’ll just tell you anything to get out of it. Well,” He dropped the honing blade back on the tray. “I think they just don’t want to be tortured! Besides,” Sam unzipped Ryan’s jacket and used the knife to cut open his shirt. He was met with bruised skin and a dozen old scars. “It does something for me, if you know what I mean.”

He picked up the first knife and held the flat of the blade against Ryan’s stomach. Despite himself, Ryan shivered at the touch of the cool metal. He’d been cut up and beaten before, but he didn’t have much experience with actual torture. Well, not from this side of the table anyway.

Sam looked as if he was going to make the first cut and Ryan braced himself. He pulled back through, and gently slid the knife back on the tray.

“Nah. For someone like you, Vagabond, we need to be creative, I think.” Sam hovered his hand over the tray, thinking. Ryan kept his eyes away from Sam’s hand, what he wanted. Out of the corner of his eye Ryan saw his hand settled over a blowtorch. “We’ve got to make this memorable.”

Sam still had a wild look in his eyes but the way he observed Ryan was focused and controlled. The tool changing, the words, it was all meant to ramp up Ryan’s anxiety. Ryan fit his face with a sneer and said nothing.

God, he hoped it looked convincing.

“I don’t want to break you too quickly, that would be disappointing. Keep your secrets, I don’t want them yet. No, when we grab another of Ramsey’s crew then you’ll talk. They say you’re closer than other crews. That you all live together in one big apartment. I bet you’d hate to see Gavin’s pretty face all cut up.”

Sam’s eyes widened at Ryan’s expression. He hadn’t expected Sam to make this about his crew.

“Ooh, struck a nerve, did I? Turner _was_ right, working with Ramsey made you soft. Maybe we’ll get Michael, or Jack. We’d cut through all those muscles and ligaments so they’d never get to use those strong arms ever again. Or we’ll grab Jeremy and fuck his brain up so he’d never be the same after. I know people who can do that.”

Ryan fought to keep his face neutral, but Sam was looking at him like he hit the jackpot. The jig was up. Ryan had played his hand.

“If I hurt one of them in front of you you’ll talk. Do you think they feel the same way? I don’t know why, but I feel like if they really cared about you, you wouldn’t be here right now. Someone would have wanted to help you with Turner. Have your back. I guess not.”

Ryan knew why he went in alone, because Geoff thought he could handle it. But the words hurt all the same.

“Nothing to say, Vagabond? You were chattier earlier. Shame. Oh well, let’s get started.”

Sam turned the blowtorch on and fiddled with it until the flame turned a steady blue.

“You’re mine now, Vagabond. I’m going to make sure everyone knows it. I’m going to write my name right. Here.”

Sam pressed the flame closer to Ryan’s chest. He could feel the heat of the flame and he started to sweat. The heat grew hotter, unbearably hot and Ryan groaned. The stench of burnt skin filled the air. Ryan twisted his arms and tried to kick the ground, the chair, anything to get away. Acrid smoke drifted up from where Sam was working.

After an agonising ten seconds Sam moved the torch away and admired his work.

“It’s a good start, at least.”

Ryan looked down at his chest and felt nauseous. A charred and bloody ‘S’ had been drawn into his skin. The area around the wound where it was less damaged had already started to blister. His chest throbbed in time with his heartbeat and the heat spread down to his stomach and up to his neck.

Sam had only done a single letter? He wasn’t sure he could go through that another two times.

Sam leaned in close again.

“Now hold still, or I’ll mess the ‘A’ up”-

The door slammed open and the two guards ran in. Sam started at the noise and dragged the blowtorch across the length of Ryan’s chest. Ryan couldn’t help himself- he screamed.

“Look what you made me do!” Sam shouted. The guards shut the door behind them, locked it, and drew their weapons.

“They’re here!” One of them said.

“Who’s here?”

“All of them! The rest of Ramsey’s crew!”

Through the haze of pain, Ryan watched the colour drain from Sam’s face.

“ _All of_ ”-

Something heavy hit the door. Sam drew a gun from his belt and flicked the safety off. The rest of the room was dead silent.

On the other side of the metal door, someone tried the handle. A few seconds later the sound was replaced with a scratching and tapping sound that Ryan recognised as someone trying to pick the lock.

A bead of sweat dripped down Sam’s face. He aimed his gun at the door, his hands shaking a little.

The wall to Ryan’s left exploded.

The three standing men were thrown from their feet. Ryan weathered the blast, his hair blowing past his eyes and the dust and stones peppering him. When he could see again he saw Michael step through the hole and blast the guards to kingdom come with a shotgun, Jeremy and Geoff hot on his heels.

Ryan had never been so thankful to see them in his entire life.

Sam turned the gun on Ryan, pulling his head back by his hair and forcing the barrel under his chin.

“One more step and”-

Geoff shot him in the head. Sam’s gun fell into Ryan’s lap and the rest of him slumped down to the floor.

Cool hands cupped his face and he found himself face to face with Jeremy.

“Ryan, bud, you okay? Can you hear me?”

Ryan meekly nodded his head.

“I… yeah, yeah. I’m fine.”

Then it was Jack next to him, picking the locks on the shackles on his hands. Someone must have opened the door for him.

“Shit, Ryan,” Geoff said. “I’m so fucking sorry. If I knew it was a trap”-

“Later, Geoff.” Ryan rasped, his throat thick with dust and smoke. “Turner. Turner’s here.”

Jack finished undoing the locks and Michael and Jeremy helped Ryan to his feet. He swayed for a few moments before circulation returned and he could walk. He picked up Sam’s gun, a pistol, and stumbled to the door.

Michael put a hand on his shoulder.

“Woah dude, don’t worry about Turner. We’ll get him. Jack will take you back to the car”-

“I can fight. I want to finish this.” Ryan cut him off. Michael saw the expression on his face and nodded.

“Fine.” Geoff said. “But let us take the lead, okay?”

“Okay.”

Gavin was waiting for them out in the hallway, watching over it with a rifle in hand. When he saw Ryan he broke out in a grin, but it faded when he took in his injuries.

“I’m fine.” Ryan said pre-emptively, waving off his concerned look. “Turner is here. He couldn’t have got far.”

They made a sweep of the house, checking each room for more of Sam’s thugs or Turner. Ryan glanced out a window and realised Sam hideout was a nice house on the Vinewood Hills. About a dozen bodies littered the hallways and rooms, and scorch marks and bullet holes made appearances in the walls and ceiling. Ryan hadn’t heard any of the fighting. He’d been preoccupied.

Gavin stepped out onto a balcony and took a shotgun shell to the chest. He fell backwards and crashed into a potted plant.

“Gavin!” Ryan yelled.

Turner’s enormous thug appeared on the balcony, carrying a bullpup shotgun. He reloaded, stepped over Gavin’s prone form, and aimed towards them.

Ryan felt his stomach drop. Here it was- his team paying for his mistakes. A shot to the chest like that wasn’t survivable.

Jeremy pulled him behind cover, the kitchen counter, just as the thug fired and the shrapnel from the blast reached them.

“Stay down!” Jeremy hissed.

The thug fired again, shattering the corner of the counter. Someone else returned fire, probably Michael or Geoff from a different bit of cover. Ryan heard the thug’s heavy footsteps approach like the bullets were mere annoyances. He readied Sam’s pistol and waited for him to turn the corner.

“Carbon nanotubes, bitch!”

A rifle went off, and the thug’s footsteps were replaced with a wet smack against wooden floor.

Ryan peeked out from behind the damaged counter and saw Gavin leaning over the body of the thug, the head torn open and splattered all over the floor. Gavin blew away some imaginary smoke from the end of his rifle.

“Gavin?” Ryan said.

“Carbon nanotubes and enhanced Kevlar, whatever that is.” Gavin said. “M’ still going to have a nasty bruise though. Ouch.”

The front of Gavin’s shirt was ruined with shrapnel holes, and the armour underneath wasn’t looking much better, but he was alive.

Thank God.

“I was saving the armour for a heist.” Geoff said. “Pretty glad I didn’t now, actually.”

Of course. The armour prototypes that Turner himself had sold them. Geoff had finally gotten around to turning them into actual pieces of body armour.

Ryan shook his head and started to laugh. It hurt like hell and the rest of his crew was giving him odd looks, but he couldn’t stop. Tears formed at the edge of his eyes.

“Ryan’s finally lost the plot.” Jack said.

Finally Ryan straightened up and wiped his eyes.

“Nope. I think I just found it. Oh _Turner_!” Ryan shouted. “ _Won’t you come out and play?_ ”

There was a small bang from the next room over. The six of them headed into it, a bedroom, and surrounded a fancy storage box at the foot of the bed. Michael opened the lid and Jeremy and Jack pulled Turner out of it and onto the floor.

He didn’t even have a weapon on him, which disappointed Ryan. He vaguely recalled Turner had taken his pistol and he would have liked it back. The only thing he had was Ryan’s mask, which Ryan took from his shaking fingers. He didn’t put it on though- just stared at Turner until the man was a quivering mess.  When he couldn’t look any more cowed, Ryan punched him once in the nose and he passed out.

“He never had much of a spine, did he.” Geoff said.

“I’ll make sure to rip what’s left of it out.” Ryan said. He sat down heavily on the carpet, a hand rising to his chest.

“Okay, take it easy.” Geoff cautioned. “Time to get you home. Try not to die on the way, alright? We’ll handle the rest.”

Ryan nodded, too tired suddenly to speak his reply. Jack and Michael helped him to his feet and all but carried him out of the house, leaving Geoff, Jeremy, and Gavin to deal with Turner. As soon as he laid down on the Roosevelt’s back seat he fell asleep.

 

 *******

 

Ryan woke up sunlight streaming in from his bedroom window. His wrists and chest ached, but he felt infinitely better than when he was in Sam’s hideout. Raising a hand to his face he saw his wrist was smothered in a thick bandage.

“You really did a number on yourself.”

Geoff sat by his bedside, flicking through a stack of paperwork. He wrote a couple of things down and then deposited the stack on a side table.

“I wasn’t the only one.” Ryan replied. He tried to sit up but gave up immediately. The burns on his chest flared up obnoxiously. Burns were the _worst_.

“When you didn’t check in after grabbing Turner, we got worried. Gavin and Jack checked out the warehouse and figured out what happened. Turner left enough clues in the warehouse for Gavin to put the pieces together and figure out where you are. You knew we’d come for you, right?”

Ryan opened his mouth but Geoff cut him off, not finished yet.

“Jack talked to me the other day, said you were worried about your performance. You were worried I’d kick you off the crew. Ryan, you know you’re the best damn person _in_ this crew?”

“Geoff”-

“No, I’m not done. You _are_. I don’t kick people out because they make a few imperfect decisions. If I did I would’ve been out long before you joined. I hope we proved yesterday we’d have your back if anything bad happened. Lord, you should have seen how worried Jeremy looked. Getting you back in one piece was the most important thing. Even more so than finding Sam, but I’m glad we found him too. Two birds with one stone, am I right?”

“G”-

“Shut up. I had a point to this pretty little speech but I started rambling. Here.” Geoff passed him the stack of papers. “Here’s Michael’s mug shot after he got arrested robbing that bowling alley. That one’s a selfie Gavin took after getting beat up by a group of firemen. You remember when he tried to steal that firetruck? This is a news article about the time Jack crashed my very expensive jet into my very expensive yacht. Do you get the picture?”

“I think I do.”

“What about the time Jeremy broke all of Gavin’s expensive hacking computers when he decided to axe-kick his desk?”

Ryan smiled.

“I’d forgotten about that, actually.”

“You’re too hard on yourself, Ryan. Learn from your mistakes and don’t let them consume you. Although yesterday, that was entirely my fault. You can pin that on me.”

“Did you end up sorting out the rest of the Harveys?”

“Yeah. The B Team took care of most of the small skirmishes, and we had some help from some of the other crews in the area. The police cleaned it all up after. Minimal civilian casualties. I can’t say we got all Harveys members, but the ones we missed don’t matter.”

“That’s good to hear. And Turner?”

“Waiting for you downstairs, when you’re up to it. Please, for the love of God, stay in bed a few days and rest before butchering the guy.”

“Okay, fine. Just this once. And don’t worry too much about yesterday. We sorted it, in the end.”

“We always do.”

“We always do. And Geoff- thanks.”

Geoff stood up to leave, but paused at the doorway. He came back to Ryan’s bedside and laid a hand on his shoulder, and squeezed it softly.

“Of course, Ryan. Whatever you need.”

 

 *******

 

A week later Jack piloted a cargobob over the San Chianski Mountain Range. He passed mountaintop after mountaintop, until he stopped over one that looked vaguely familiar. He found a stretch of ground that was relatively flat and took the cargobob down. Seven people climbed out of it and surveyed their surrounds.

“This is definitely the mountain.” Michael said. “Did anybody bring binoculars?”

“No need.” Ryan said, pointing. “There it is.”

Tucked in between a rock and a scraggly tree sat a safe. It was dented to hell and had accumulated a little moss, but it still looked useable. They made their way towards it.

Jeremy heaved on the door but the safe remained shut. “Yep, still locked tight. Ryan?”

Ryan pushed the seventh man, a shaking, cowardly excuse of a man, in front of him and he stumbled against the door of the safe.

“You said you can open this,” Ryan said, “if you were lying…”

Turner, or what was left of him, shook his head. He reached out with half a hand and spun the dial on the door. It took him a few tries to get his hand to co-operate, but once he did the door clicked open with no problems.

“You really did a number on the guy.” Jack said. Ryan hummed in agreement.

“Yeah, I did. Had to prove I hadn’t gone soft, you see.”

“You? _Soft?_ ”

“I know right?”

“Holy shit.” Geoff said. “It’s filled with money! We hit the fucking jackpot!”

Jack pulled out stacks of money, one after the other, and passed them to Michael and Gavin.

“There must be fifty grand in here.” Jack exclaimed.

“We’re rich!” Michael yelled. “Rich, I tell you!”

“Anything else in there?” Gavin asked.

“Doesn’t look like it.” Jack replied. “Wait… there is something, actually.”

Jack pulled out a dirty looking pistol and inspected it. “I don’t think I’ve seen this model before. You think it’s valuable?”

Ryan took the pistol from him. It could have been a regular, except this one was cyan and red and a fair bit heavier than the ones Ryan was used to.

“Don’t know. I’ll test it out on the range though. Might be a military prototype.”

Ryan decided to keep it. He needed another pistol after losing three other ones.

“The safe is definitely empty now.” Jack said. “Should we start heading back?”

“One more thing first.”

Ryan grabbed Turner by the collar and shoved him in the safe. The broken man curled in on himself at the bottom.

Jeremy raised an eyebrow at Ryan.

“What are you planning?”

“I was thinking a sea burial.”

Turner began to sob.

“Hush, you.” Ryan said. “Jack, can you pick the safe up from here?”

“Yeah… probably.”

Six men climbed back in the cargobob. Jack managed to pick the safe up and they flew a fair distance out to sea. Once they were out far enough, Jack dropped the safe.

Ryan swore he heard Turner howling before he disappeared from sight, under the waves.

It was no less than he deserved. He shouldn’t have betrayed the crew.

And besides- Ryan had a reputation to uphold.

He was the Vagabond, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t believe you.” Gavin said. “People don’t just faint like that.”  
> Ryan took another sip of his diet coke. “Well I’m not lying to you. He just keeled over right in front of me.”  
> “That’s got to be bull. Why don’t people find me that terrifying?”  
> Jeremy snorted. “Why would they? You can barely walk three feet before causing an accident.”  
> “It’s part of my _charm_ , Jeremy.”  
> “Then why don’t people find you charming either then?”  
> “Children, please.” Geoff said. “Shut up for two seconds. Ryan, carry on.”  
> “He face planted in the dirt and I threw his gun away. There’s not that much to it, actually.”  
> Gavin pouted. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”  
> Ryan smiled. “I don’t doubt that one bit.”


	6. The Secret Sixth Time

Ah, bank heists. Ryan had a bit of a soft spot for the classics, and heists were no exception. The Pacific Standard Public Deposit Bank was fairly quiet, which wasn’t unexpected as it was five minutes past closing time. There had been a couple of old people and a few teenagers populating the service area, but one look at the six masked men with guns sent them scurrying out of the building to safety. The teens had hung around outside, probably hoping to see some action, but a direct glare from the Vagabond sent them backpedalling over each other to get away.

Because 5pm was the time most businesses either closed or changed their staff, it meant the police would take longer to respond as well. The sun was low and turning the sky all sorts of pretty colours, his boots made a pleasing noise on the marble floor, and he was about to make a _lot_ of money. Ryan couldn’t help the easy smile that spread across his face, or the slight skip in his step. He was in a fantastic mood.

“Shut the fuck up!” Michael screeched at a blubbering teller. “Is this your first stick-up or something?! Do you need someone to hold your fucking hand through it?!”

And he didn’t sound like the only one enjoying himself. The teller fainted clean away and his colleague managed to stop his head from hitting the ground too hard. She glared at Michael as if to say _Come on now. Did you have to be so hard on him?_

“Got it!” Gavin called over to them. He held up an access card relieved from the unconscious body of the bank manager.

“Nice.” Geoff said. “Jeremy, Michael. Keep the staff from doing anything stupid. Gavin, wipe everything from the security cameras and find us a way to the vault. Jack, Vagabond, with me.”

Gavin flicked the access card to Geoff and he fumbled it. He flipped Gavin off before jogging down a hallway, Jack and Ryan on his heels. Jack hauled a large bag over his shoulder, slowing him down, but also giving Ryan more time to sweep the adjoining corridors for any threats.

“Take a… a left just there. Up ahead.” Gavin said over the comms. In the background was the furious clicking of a mouse. “Then a right, a straight, and then there’s the way down to the vault there.”

“Take a straight?” Jack asked. “Are we meant to find the nearest heterosexual?”

“You know what I mean!”

They followed Gavin’s directions and found the staircase down to the vault. Geoff swiped the access card and the barred door opened, letting them descend. Geoff and Ryan took the stairs two at a time, Jack a bit more slowly.

There were two guards in a booth at the foot of the stairs. Upon seeing the weapons, they immediately raised their hands and surrendered.

“Please don’t hurt us!” One said. “We don’t get paid enough to deal with this.”

Geoff shook his head. “Nah. Sit down and be quiet. Unless, do either of you know how to get into the vault?”

Twin head shakes.

“I didn’t think so. Jack?”

Jack let the bag hit the floor with a heavy _thunk_. He opened it and pulled out a tool that looked like a long welding torch. He also pulled out a small welding torch, couple of gas canisters, a welder’s helmet, and safety gloves.

“You’ll want to stand back.” Jack cautioned. They obediently took a few steps away from the vault door. “No, like, all the way back. This thing can heat up to three thousand kelvin.”

“That’s a lot, right?” Geoff said as he backed away.

“It’s almost five thousand degrees Fahrenheit.”  Ryan told him.

“How do you know that?”

“I looked up how hot a thermal lance can get on the drive over.”

“Why?”

Ryan shrugged. “I was intrigued.”

Jack donned the protective gear and connected the first oxygen canister to the thermal lance. He ignited the smaller torch and used it to heat up the end of the thermal lance. The two security guards craned their heads around Geoff and Ryan to look at what Jack was doing.

“Look away, guys.” Jack warned, and Ryan and Geoff turned their heads away. The security guards did not heed Jack’s warning and their faces lit up in a painfully bright light. They shielded their own faces after that.

The thermal lance cast waves of sparks across the room, many of them striking their clothes and shoes. Geoff jumped and took up a new position, moving behind Ryan so his girth would protect him from the sparks.

“Stop being a baby.” Ryan teased. The thermal lance was loud, and the screech of metal almost devoured his words.

“Your ponytail’s on fire!”

“No it isn’t.”

“It was smouldering a little.” Geoff grumbled.

A few minutes, and a few oxygen canisters later, the light and sound stopped. Jack took a few hasty steps back and the vault door fell to the ground with an earth-shaking _crash._

“Christ!” Michael yelled over the comms. “Was that you guys?”

“Oh yes.” Jack replied. “The vault has been opened.”

“You better hurry up.” Jeremy interjected. “I hear sirens.”

“There’s a Borderlands joke in here somewhere.” Michael said.

Ryan and Geoff entered the vault while Jack kept an eye on the security personnel outside. Inside the vault, stacked in neat rows along the walls, sat data storage towers humming away. A generator off to the side provided power to the system.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t a classical heist. It wasn’t like banks kept huge stacks of money in vaults these days anyway, with everyone using debits cards and such. Big data was the new currency and people paid massive amounts for it. In this case, for Merryweather’s, the military and security company, off-site data backups. Thousands of terabytes of data sat stacked in neat little rows, emanating enough heat for sweat to drip past Ryan’s eyes. Most companies used data centres to store their data, but Merryweather decided to go above and beyond to keep their data safe.

Clearly not high… or beyond… enough. Whatever. Words were hard.

“Which tower was it we were meant to take?” Geoff said.

“Uh, the one labelled 6C.” Ryan told him. “I think.”

They found it easy enough and pulled the data rack from the wall. Carefully disconnecting the dozens of cables attached to the tower, they hefted the thing between them and out of the vault to Jack. He held the bag open and they very gently placed the tower inside. Once the data was secured, Jack zipped the bag up and hauled it over his shoulder.

“Unplugging all that isn’t going to damage it at all,” Jack huffed, “is it?”

“Nah.” Ryan said. “They’ve got internal batteries, or something.”

“For a computer guy you don’t really sound all that sure of yourself.”

“For the guy designated to carrying, you don’t seem to be doing much of it.”

Jack laughed and began climbing the staircase up to ground level. Geoff and Ryan followed him up.

Ryan put one foot on the stairs and paused.

“Wait, wait. We’re just gonna leave the thermal lance here?”

“Well it doesn’t fit in the bag anymore, Vagabond.” Geoff said.

“But we can’t leave it here!”

“Why not? It’s too hot to touch and I doubt we’ll ever use it again. If you want to carry it out of here, be my guest.”

The thermal lance sat leaning against a wall, leaving a growing burn mark against the concrete. There was no way Ryan could leave it down here though. He had an unusual weapon rack in his bedroom and it was just too cool to be a one-time thing.

“Fine. I’ll meet you at the getaway car, all right?”

“Sure, whatever. Just remember there _are_ cops on the way.”

Geoff and Jack climbed up the stairs and out of sight. Ryan turned to the security guards.

“You. Shirt.”

“What?”

“Give me your shirt.”

“Why?”

“Because if you don’t, I’ll take it from your corpse.” Ryan threatened.

The guard made placating gestures and removed his shirt. Ryan slung his rifle over his back, took the sweat-stained item of clothing, and wrapped it around the handle of the lance. Perfect.

This heist was turning into the highlight of his week.

He climbed the stairs as quickly as possible and jogged down the corridor, holding, with no small difficulty, the lance in one hand and a pistol in the other. He couldn’t take the oxygen tanks with him, but he thought he knew a guy that might be able to get him more. What about the next time they did a bank heist? Now they wouldn’t have to find another thermal lance. This was actually an investment. At least, that was how he was going to spin it to the others when they inevitably got into a firefight with the police waiting for him.

He took a left, then a right, and… hang on. This wasn’t right. The front service area of the bank should have been dead ahead. He retraced his steps back to the stairs and found himself at a staircase leading upwards.

Uh oh.

“Um, guys?” Ryan said over the comms. “I think I’m lost.”

Didn’t they take a left and a right to get down to the vault? How was this now a different corridor?

“Vagabond, I can direct you.” Gavin said. “Where are you?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be lost!”

“Jesus Christ Vagabond.” Geoff said. “I leave you alone for thirty seconds with a high powered weapon and look what happens. Do you need us to come find you”-

-“No, no. I’ll just find a different way out.”

Typical. He took two steps while thinking about oxygen tanks and now he was hopelessly lost. Truly, a mercenary extraordinaire over here. Still, every commercial building had clear exit signs and the bank was no exception. Ryan found the nearest one and followed it.

The trail seemed to be leading him to the back of the building. A stroke of luck- that’s where the others would be waiting for him with the car. He picked up the pace, turning his easy jog into a full sprint. Maybe he could get to his crew before the police came.

A door opened in front of him. Ryan smacked into it with a tremendous amount of momentum.

The thermal lance and pistol flew from his hands and he crashed into the ground, on his back. His rifle dug a painful groove into his back and his head rung. Dimly, he was aware of the sound of rushing water.

“Oh, fucking shit!” A young voice said.

Ryan pressed a hand to the back of head, over his mask, and rose to his knees. He was going to have quite the lump. He felt around for his pistol and squinted at what he hit. A bathroom door and a young, concerned face peered back at him.

“I am _so_ sorry sir- Wait. You’re- shit shit _shit_. You’re the Vagabond!”

The kid picked up Ryan’s pistol and aimed it at him. Aw, crap. He didn’t want to deal with this ight now. He moved to pull the rifle from his back.

“Holy _shit._ Don’t move!”

Ryan let his hands fall to his side. He could see it in the kid’s eyes- despite his bravery with the gun there was no way he was going to shoot him. He was terrified. Ryan slowly climbed to his feet and squared his shoulders as menacingly as he could.

Wait- he’d seen this kid before. He knew that voice. And now he knew why the teens from the service area had stuck around- they were waiting for their friend to come back.

Well, they needn’t worry. Ryan wouldn’t hurt the poor kid. Physically, at least.

“Four months ago.” Ryan said, in a low and gravelly voice. “You worked a job for The Harveys.”

The teen looked at him, shocked. He let the gun drop a little.

“How”-

-“You hit a guy in the face with your rifle. You panicked and ran off.”

The teen tilted his head in confusion.

“I never told anyone that. How could you possible know that?”

“Because I had the concussion for almost a week. I couldn’t walk straight for days.”

The teen’s face whitened.

“No. _Way._ ”

“Oh yes. You’re the only person to get the better of the Vagabond.”

Okay, that wasn’t strictly true. Others to beat the Vagabond included a river, an old man, a beginner’s lock picking kit, Ryan himself, and Jeremy when they played Uno. But the teen didn’t need to know that.

“And twice at that.” Ryan finished.

The teen’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding me?”

With the gun all but forgotten in the teen’s hands, Ryan shortened the distance between them.

“I wish. Do you know what things like this do to my reputation?”

“Why are you telling me this then?”

Ryan leaned in close, until only an inch or two separated their eyes. Ryan could see the sweat budding at his hairline, his pupils contract as Ryan moved into his light.

“Because no one will ever believe you.”

With that, Ryan took his pistol back from the teen’s unprotesting hands, picked up the thermal lance, and headed towards the exit again. It took every last shred of his self-control to avoid turning around and enjoying the look on the teen’s face, but there was no way in hell he was ruining the effect. He would forever be thankful for the mask covering his face because he was smiling up a storm.

He made it out the back exit and found his crew waiting impatiently for him in a shabby-looking van. Ryan chucked the thermal lance in the back and climbed in. Michael peeled away from the bank just as the police rounded the corner, their lights spooking a couple of alley cats.

“They following us?” Geoff asked.

“They’re following us.” Michael said. “But I’ll lose them in the alleys. Police hate alleyways.”

“They suck at tight spaces.”

“Plus it’s like they’re afraid to hit pedestrians or something dumb like that.”

Jeremy made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Are we going to ignore the tight space comment?”

A few bullets peppered the back of the van. Jack turned around from the front to address those in the back.

“Hey Ryan,” he said, “You have any issues getting out of the bank?”

“Nope. None at all.”

“Because we heard some noises over the comms”-

-The back window shattered. Michael cursed and made a sharp turn. Ryan shook his head.

“You probably just heard static. It happens, a lot of concrete messing with the signal.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Gavin said, mockingly.

“Because no one will ever believe you!” Jeremy finished, in as deep a voice as he could muster.

“Look, guys, I sorted it!”

“We know, we know,” Geoff said, laughing, “It was fucking funny, is all.”

Michael made another sharp turn into a parking garage. A few seconds later the flashing red and blue lights passed them and carried on without them.

“Thank fuck.” Michael said. “Is the data-whatever okay in the back?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” Gavin said. “No holes in it.”

“Great.” Geoff heaved a sigh of relief. “Let’s get this thing to the buyer and go home.”

“Another successful heist, boys!” Jeremy shouted. “Drinks on me tonight.”

“I pay your salary, Jeremy.”

“Drinks on Geoff.”

“Drinks are always on me. Except when I throw them on Gavin, heh heh.”

Ryan smirked, and took his mask off. He picked up the thermal lance, now cool enough to hold, and inspected it for damage.

“It’s a cool toy,” Jack said. “I hope it was worth getting your shit kicked in by a teenager. Again.”

“Oh yes, in a heartbeat.” Ryan replied. “This is going on my wall.”

“It’s such a Vagabond thing to do,” Gavin said. “Have an _unusual weapons rack_ in his bedroom.”

“Nah.” Ryan said. “It’s such a Ryan thing to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ryan left the noise from the living room and turned the light on in his bedroom with his elbow. He held the thermal lance in one hand, a diet coke in the other, his mask by just a pinky finger. He put the coke and the mask down and placed the lance on the display rack.  
> “Nice.” He said.  
> Then he picked up the diet coke, turned off the light, and headed back towards the chaos that was his crew.


End file.
